When 2019's The Farewell won Awkwafina a Golden Globe for Best Actress — Musical or Comedy, it did so for a nuanced and affecting performance that dwelled in the space between putting on a happy face for the world and confronting what you're truly feeling inside. Following a China-born, New York-raised woman upon her return home to see her dying grandmother, the film used its semi-autobiographical scenario as fuel for an incisive and thoughtful character study. Writer/director Lulu Wang's feature spread further, however, as a broader portrait about the ties and lies that bind families, plus the societal and cultural surroundings that enforce expectations and dictate choices. Adapting Janice YK Lee's 2016 novel The Expatriates, Wang's first major stint behind the lens since The Farewell starts streaming via Prime Video from Friday, January 26. Dubbed Expats as a miniseries, the six-parter marks a shift in location to Hong Kong and a splinter in focus to three protagonists, but its guiding force — with Wang creating the show, executive producing, helming all six episodes and writing two — is still plunging deep into bonds of blood, deceptions amid close relationships, grappling with grief and tragedy, and being caught between how one is meant to carry on and inescapable inner emotions. It too sees not only people but also its chosen place. It's a haunting series and, albeit not literally in the horror sense, a series about women haunted. As Margaret Woo, an American landscape architect who has relocated to Hong Kong for her husband Clarke's (Brian Tee, Chicago Med) job, Nicole Kidman (Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom) is in familiar territory. In Big Little Lies, The Undoing and Nine Perfect Strangers, all fellow small-screen efforts that she also executive produced, she similarly played characters tormented: by a horrific husband, a murder case and loss, respectively. She's well-experienced at stepping into the shoes of women bearing anguish and heartbreak while living privileged existences as well, and at sporting the masks demanded when there's a status quo to uphold. But Kidman isn't one to turn in the same traumatised performance again and again, even if she's repeatedly drawn to such roles. Here, Margaret's seesawing between relentlessly soldiering on and being unable to flee her desperation says everything about someone who is rarely able to admit the truth of her feelings even to herself. The year is 2014, and the Woos aren't new Hong Kong arrivals — but their past 12 months have been under a shadow ever since their youngest son Gus (debutant Connor James) went missing. No one is coping, including elder children Daisy (Tiana Gowen, True Love Blooms) and Philip (Bodhi del Rosario, 9-1-1). But while Margaret refuses to give up hope of finding her three-year-old boy, there are still lives to lead and, to help start Expats, a 50th birthday party for Clarke to host. In the lift at The Peak, the towering symbol of wealth inhabited by plenty who give the show its title, she's also insistent that her friend, downstairs neighbour and fellow American Hilary Starr (Sarayu Blue, A Million Miles Away) attend the shindig. The frostiness that fills the elevator also stems from Gus' disappearance, and accusations made against Hilary's recovering-alcoholic husband David (Jack Huston, Anne Rice's Mayfair Witches). Unpacking Hilary's plight provides the second of Expat's interconnected character studies, as the successful businesswoman treads water in a marriage where going through the motions is among the few shared traits remaining. Despite their quest to start a family, she's started secretly taking birth control again. Hilary and David do still boast something else in common, though: an inability to shake their hurt at each other over secrets, reactions and never believing that they're on the same page. Frequently dressed in tan- and beige-hued jumpsuits, Blue plays her part with no less potency than Kidman, but with softer edges. At her extremes, Hilary is deliberate rather than steely and quietly fragile instead of achingly frenzied. Completing Expats' triangle is Mercy (Ji-young Yoo, The Sky Is Everywhere), a Korean American in her twenties working gig-economy jobs, residing in far-more-ordinary digs and happiest about Hong Kong's distance from her mother. With the friends that she's collected in her time in the city, she flits in and out. On her catering assignments, she weaves around well-to-do crowds. She feels like an outsider in multiple ways, and is also convinced that she's cursed. It's Mercy's narration that kicks off the series, talking about the people who unwittingly spark life-changing tragedies, plus the world's quick-to-forget attitudes towards their guilt and agony — voiceover that not only assists in connecting the narrative's web-like strands, but expresses vulnerability and pain that Yoo's shattering performance is always endeavouring to plaster over with anything that the character can even fleetingly grasp onto. Every city is home to a mourning mother with other kids to try to put on a brave face for, women stuck in fraying marriages and restless young souls keen to discover who they want to be. Every place has an expat community of folks who've relocated for love, employment and fresh chances, some or none of which might've worked out nicely. Every town includes those who can't move away even after they've weathered the worst that their life has thrown at them in their adopted spot. Every locale is inhabited by some who don't feel like they quite belong, but are also certain that they'd feel the same even if they retraced their steps. As probingly and naturalistically lensed by Wang's returning The Farewell cinematographer Anna Franquesa-Solano, and as purposefully set in a year where protests took to the streets against China's role in the special administrative region's elections, Hong Kong isn't just any city to Expats, however. Wang also spends time with two Filipino women who work as live-in helpers away from their own families, the Woos' nanny Essie (Ruby Ruiz, In His Mother's Eyes) and the Starrs' housekeeper Puri (first-timer Amelyn Pardenilla). They're regular presences in Expats' first four episodes, then get pushed to the fore in its movie-length fifth episode, alongside local students (including Sparks' Bonde Sham as Charly) among the Umbrella Movement who are fighting for better futures. The series sees their hopes, wants, dreams and disappointments, too. It stares unflinchingly at the chasm between their Hong Kong and the one navigated by wealthy transplants. Crucially, this drama puts comfortable existences, woes and all, into stark context. A different series could've been made with Essie, Puri, Charly and company firmly at the centre — but in this tale of three Americans adrift with their sorrows, where and the reality that surrounds them is equally as important as how and why. Check out the trailer for Expats below: Expats streams via Prime Video from Friday, January 26.
After the apocalypse arrived from above in the form of extra-terrestrials that leap upon any and every sound, audiences have already seen what happened on day 89 and day 471–7. We've also caught a glimpse of the day that started it all. But A Quiet Place and A Quiet Place Part II prequel A Quiet Place: Day One is going right back to the beginning properly, and not just via flashbacks. The third effort in the now-franchise is also headed to New York. On the way since 2021, and just dropping its first trailer ahead of its June 2024 release, the latest A Quiet Place film steps into the alien invasion's initial impact in the Big Apple with 12 Years a Slave Oscar-winner Lupita Nyong'o (Black Panther: Wakanda Forever) at its centre. As the initial sneak peek shows, she's walking happily with a cat in her arms when the sky starts falling — and she soon realises that noise is what sets off earth's unwanted new visitors. When A Quiet Place hit cinemas in 2018, did stellar things with its mostly dialogue-free premise and gave films about otherworldly attackers a creative spin, it quickly proved a big box office hit. That's hardly surprising; Emily Blunt (Oppenheimer) added another formidable role to her resume, John Krasinski (Jack Ryan) did great work both in front of and behind the camera, both Millicent Simmonds (Wonderstruck) and Noah Jupe (The Undoing) turned in excellent performances, and the entire movie made the absolute most of its silence-heavy approach and its niche in the horror genre. So, not only was a sequel always likely, but more in the saga after that, with Day One giving viewers more time in the franchise's eerie dystopian world. The trailer for the new film shows snippets of the first two movies' Abbott family for context, but it's Djimon Hounsou (Gran Turismo: Based on a True Story) who returns from A Quiet Place Part II among the cast. In the sneak peek, he pops up late to help stress why surviving requires keeping your lips zipped as tightly as possible. A Quiet Place: Day One also features Stranger Things star Joseph Quinn, who leaves Vecna behind for different monsters. Behind the lens, instead of Krasinski sitting in the director's chair, fellow filmmaker Michael Sarnoski helms — swapping Nicolas Cage on a vengeance mission over his beloved pet in Pig for tackling invading aliens. He wrote the screenplay, too, after coming up with the story with Krasinski. Originally Take Shelter, Mud, Midnight Special and Loving's Jeff Nichols was set to direct, but left due to creative differences. Check out the trailer for A Quiet Place: Day One below: A Quiet Place: Day One releases in cinemas Down Under on Thursday, June 27, 2024. Read our reviews of A Quiet Place and A Quiet Place Part II.
When you live in a city that's usually streaming with sunshine all year round, the sudden onset of colder weather can come as a shock. Fear not, brrrrrrrr-yelling Brisbanites — the frosty season comes bearing gifts. Indeed, at Riverbar and Kitchen's third annual Winter Festival, there are plenty of things to heat you up. Example one: mulled wine, aka the best way there is to drink wine (once you've tried it, we're betting you'll agree). Example two: hot-buttered rum, which really does involve putting butter in rum (and defying everything you've ever been told about healthy eating). Example three: s'mores, because all that slurping is bound to leave your tastebuds wanting fire-roasted marshmallows and chocolate between two biscuits. You'll find all three down by the Eagle Street waterside on Saturday, July 28 and Sunday, July 29, plus live music too. Entry is free, but you'll have to pay to enjoy all of the above. That view won't cost a thing, of course.
Get ready to swoon. Nick Cave has just announced a tour of Australia and New Zealand in November and December this year, and unencumbered by new releases, he'll be playing a wide selection of classics that stretch right back into his 30-year catalogue. Unlike Cave's 2013 Push the Sky Away tour with featured his much-loved band The Bad Seeds, this will be a rare solo outing. Prepare yourself now — you're probably going to cry when he plays 'Into My Arms'. News of this tour comes fresh after the premiere of 20,000 Days on Earth — a fictional documentary (just go with it) about this legendary musician. We enjoyed this 90 minutes of one-on-one time with the artist so much we even named the film one the best at this year's Sydney Film Festival. Now we get to make this alone time a reality; just like in the cinema, this tour will be you and Nick Cave (and a bunch of strangers) in the dark. Beginning in late November, Cave will be hitting up Perth, Adelaide, Brisbane, Auckland, Wellington, Sydney and Melbourne. And, though the venues are large, the tickets will be snapped up quick. Hopefully these latter mid-December dates spell further good news for Melbourne fans though. Nick Cave at the Meredith Supernatural Amphitheatre, anyone? Oh god, please say it's so. Tour dates: Thursday, November 27 & Friday, November 28 - Fremantle Arts Centre, Perth Sunday, November 30 - Festival Theatre, Adelaide Wednesday, December 3 - Brisbane Convention Centre, Brisbane Thursday, December 4 - Gold Coast Convention & Exhibition Centre, Gold Coast Saturday, December 6 & Sunday, December 7 - Civic Theatre, Auckland Monday, December 8 & Tuesday, December 9 - St James Theatre, Wellington Thursday, December 11 & Friday, December 12 - State Theatre, Sydney Tuesday, December 16 - Melbourne Convention & Exhibition Centre, Melbourne Tickets go on sale Thursday, July 3.
In 2022, two big fantasy shows, both part of existing hit franchises, arrived in short succession. First came Game of Thrones prequel House of the Dragon. Then, The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power jumped into Middle-earth's history. In 2024, the pair are each returning, both in winter. And in the lead up, they've each dropped trailers on the same day. House of the Dragon's new sneak peek at its second season is the latest of several. For The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power, however, this is the first glimpse at the show's next batch of episodes. The latter has also revealed its comeback date: Thursday, August 29, 2024, which is when Prime Video will take the elves, dwarves, orcs, wizards and harfoots to your streaming queue again. Set in the fantasy realm conjured by up JRR Tolkien — as The Hobbit movie adaptations and OG live-action Lord of the Rings films were — and telling a tale in Middle-earth's Second Age, The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power boasts familiar names among its key figures. In season one, a young Galadriel (Morfydd Clark, Saint Maud) had a mission to hunt the enemy, after her brother gave his life doing the same. She saw fighting for fate and destiny as the work as something greater. A young Elrond (Robert Aramayo, The King's Man) was part of that journey, and the big bad who needed staving off was Sauron (Charlie Vickers, The Lost Flowers of Alice Hart). With the show charting how the rings were forged, Sauron's rise and the impact across Middle-earth, season two brings the latter back after he was cast out by Galadriel. So, it's a battle between good and ascending evil, then, as the Dark Lord keeps pushing his shadowy influence — and sporting a different appearance. Also, more rings will be created. Prince Durin IV (Owain Arthur , Coffee Wars), Arondir (Ismael Cruz Córdova, Guillermo del Toro's Cabinet of Curiosities) and Celebrimbor (Charles Edwards, Under the Vines) are among the returning characters on the Prime Video hit, which was unsurprisingly huge when season one debut, attracting more than 100-million viewers. The platform first announced the show back in 2017, then gave it the official go-ahead in mid-2018 — so if it feels like this series has been hovering around for several ages even though it only has one season so far, that's why. If you're a little rusty on your LOTR lore, the Second Age lasted for 3441 years, and saw the initial emergence and fall of Sauron, as well as a spate of wars over the coveted rings. Elves feature prominently, and there's plenty to cover, even if Tolkien's works didn't spend that much time on the period — largely outlining the main events in an appendix to the popular trilogy. The Rings of Power remains separate to the big-screen Lord of the Rings revival that was first announced in 2023 and now has new movie Lord of the Rings: The Hunt for Gollum in the works. If you're a LoTR fan, there's no such thing as too much for this franchise, though — like breakfast for hobbits. Check out the first teaser trailer for The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power season two below: The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power season two will be available to stream via Prime Video from Thursday, August 29, 2024. Read our review of season one.
UPDATE, Friday, July 7: Limbo streams via ABC iView from 8.30pm on Sunday, July 9. When Ivan Sen sent a police detective chasing a murdered girl and a missing woman in the Australian outback in 2013's Mystery Road and its 2016 sequel Goldstone, he saw the country's dusty, rust-hued expanse in sun-bleached and eye-scorching colour. In the process, the writer, director, co-producer, cinematographer, editor and composer used his first two Aussie noir films and their immaculately shot sights to call attention to how the nation treats people of colour — historically since its colonial days and still now well over two centuries later. Seven years after the last Jay Swan movie, following a period that's seen that character make the leap to the small screen in three television seasons, Sen is back with a disappearance, a cop, all that inimitable terrain and the crimes against its Indigenous inhabitants that nothing can hide. Amid evident similarities, there's a plethora of differences between the Mystery Road franchise and Limbo; however, one of its simplest is also one of its most glaring and powerful: shooting Australia's ochre-toned landscape in black and white. Going monochrome in a place that's so connected with a red-, orange- and clay-heavy palette is a visually spectacular choice. Doing just that in a film made in Coober Pedy, the globally famous "opal capital of the world" that's known for its underground dwellings beneath the blazing South Australian earth, is a bold decision, too. Sen strips away the colour to heighten the details — and also makes an emotionally and thematically loaded move. In every second, in every image that Limbo has flicker across the screen, there's no escaping the contrast that lingers plain as day as the audience watches on. There isn't meant to any reprieve, of course. As a stranger once more rides into town western-style within one of the auteur's movies, this is another rich, impassioned and affecting feature about the vast chasm between being Black and white in Australia, and it refuses to see hurt, pain and unspeakable loss with anything but the clearest of eyes. Limbo's setting: the fictional locale that shares its name, unmistakably sports an otherworldly topography dotted by dugouts to avoid the baking heat and hasn't been able to overcome the murder of a local Indigenous girl two decades earlier. The title is symbolic several times over, including to the visiting Travis Hurley (Simon Baker, Blaze), whose first task upon arrival is checking into his subterranean hotel, rolling up his sleeves and indulging his heroin addiction. Later, he'll be told that he looks more like a drug dealer than a police officer — but, long before then, it's obvious that his line of work and the sorrows he surveys along the way have kept him hovering in a void. While he'll also unburden a few biographical details about mistakes made and regrets held before the film comes to an end, this tattooed cop with wings inked onto his back is already in limbo before he's literally in Limbo. Travis has been dispatched to give Charlotte Hayes' vanishing a fresh examination; her brother Charlie (Rob Collins, The Drover's Wife The Legend of Molly Johnson) is quick to say that exactly that should've happened 20 years prior. Back then, the investigation was brief, with fingers pointed swiftly and lazily at Limbo's First Nations men — sometimes even by each other simply to get the law off their own backs. "I don't talk to cops, especially white ones," is the initial response now. When Travis approaches Charlie's estranged sister Emma (Natasha Wanganeen, The Survival of Kindness), she's equally unwelcoming. But as the detective's line of cold-case questioning also draws in Joseph (Nicolas Hope, Black Snow), the brother of the now-dead prime suspect from all that time back, Charlotte's siblings and the new badge in town have no choice but to keep crossing paths. In the movie's deeply biting script, there's no doubting that Charlotte's case would've been handled differently from the outset if she was white — and that the racially motivated blame directed towards Charlie and Limbo's other Indigenous scapegoats has left irreparable scars. As in Mystery Road and Goldstone, Sen unpacks what such disdain for First Nations lives means in outback Australia; the fractures its causes in lives and locations; the impact upon generations that follow; and the way that this horrific state of affairs haunts at a personal, community and national level alike. Actually, perhaps it's more accurate to say that Limbo dwells with these ideas and truths, steeping in and sitting in purgatory beside them. There are some answers to be found in the film's narrative, but also no easy answers. Not just because Travis gets caught in Limbo longer than he expects or wants due to car troubles, there's no straightforward route out, either. With his layered, pointed and soul-searing stories that make perceptive use of silence (and make every word of dialogue count), Sen is an exceptional screenwriter. That's true when he's returning to familiar parts but never merely retracing his own footsteps; Limbo is the cinema equivalent of stopping on another trail in the same desert to Mystery Road and Goldstone, rather than hitting the next town in line. The auteur is one of Australia's foremost talents at every skill he plies behind the camera, in fact — and his way with actors is among them. Under his gaze, Baker is in career-best form, which is no minor feat given the actor's extensive career, plus his impressive fellow recent homegrown turns in 2017's Breath, 2020's High Ground and 2022's Blaze. Beneath close-cropped hair and wire-rimmed glasses, there's such weariness and heaviness to his portrayal, all while playing a man whose investment in the case and connection with Charlie, Emma and the former's son Zac (expressive first-timer Mark Coe) manages to surprise himself. Again shooting in Coober Pedy, as they both did for TV series Firebite, Collins and Wanganeen also give weighty performances that say so much even when they're uttering little, including about the yearning that everyone has to be seen, recognised and appreciated for who they are. Limbo's cast is contemplative in a film that's purposefully meditative — and for a filmmaker unwilling to shy away from the toll that racism constantly has, plus grief and Australia's inequitable justice system, as he ruminates. As a cinematographer, Sen's work is just as meticulous, motivated and moving. As an editor, he's exacting while knowing when to savour the moment. And Limbo is indeed a breathtaking feature to savour, staring intently as it does at harsh realities turned into a strikingly crafted and stunningly performed Aussie crime thriller.
Brisbane's Gallery of Modern Art started 2023 by musing on air, with floating mirrored spheres, volcanic mounds, and dances between light and darkness to help. When the year comes to an end, it'll turn its attention to fairy tales, complete with twisted woodlands taking over the South Bank venue. In-between, GOMA is shining a spotlight on two Australian artists, Michael Zavros and eX de Medici, in a pair of exhibitions that feature everything from cars to blood swabs. Running now until Monday, October 2, and filling GOMA for winter as well as the start of spring in the process, Michael Zavros: The Favourite and eX de Medici: Beautiful Wickedness are taking their status as major surveys of each talent's work seriously. The former covers 90-plus paintings, sculptures, videos, photos and performances by the Queensland artist, while the latter is the most extensive retrospective to-date on the Canberra-based creative and tattooist, spanning more than 100 works. With The Favourite, GOMA looks back across 25 years of Zavros' art — although Drowned Mercedes is brand new. Created for the exhibition, the sculpture fills the cabin of an original classic 90s Mercedes-Benz SL convertible with water. When attendees peer at the piece, they see their own reflection in the water. Other Zavros highlights include paintings including Man in a wool suit and Ferragamo 2000, which take inspiration from men's magazines; the Prince/Zavros, with American conceptual artist Richard Prince's late-80s Cowboy images and Marlboro Man tobacco ads an influence; architectural representations Love's temple and Unicorn in the anticamera; and a heap of portraits, with Zavros himself a frequent subject. Still-life works; equestrian paintings, drawings and sculptures; depictions of rare Japanese Onagadori chickens: they all grace GOMA's walls and halls, too. So does Acropolis Now, a large-scale mural depicting the Parthenon in Athens, which is being turned into a Greek coffee house once a month thanks to folks from Brisbane's Greek community playing backgammon and sipping Greek caffeinated beverages. "At the core of the exhibition and among the things that differentiate Michael Zavros from other artists of his generation is an unapologetic love of beauty and craftsmanship, folly, and grandeur. Audiences will enter Michael's world. They will see the rigour and breadth of his practice and how his work across multiple media reveals a subtly evolving worldview," said Queensland Art Gallery and Gallery of Modern Art Director Chris Saines. "His work is inescapably about who he is: his lifestyle — real or imagined — his family, his interests and values." In Beautiful Wickedness, the gallery harks back four decades, charting eX de Medici's exploration of life's fragility, death, greed, power, conflict and more. Here, visitors can peer at watercolours; intricate botanical studies; ample works featuring flowers and skulls; and even a bridal gown that takes its cues from Julie Andrews' dress in The Sound of Music. Early pieces include The Blood of Others, which is where those blood swabs come in — from eX de Medici's tattoo clients back in the 90s — while later works go large, feature moths and weapons, and explore war's pointlessness. "An avowed environmentalist and activist, de Medici's life and career has been dedicated to uncloaking misuses of power and revealing its effects on everyday lives. Exquisitely detailed and technically adept, her often large-scale watercolours seduce the viewer while seeking to expose the shadowy underbelly of consumerism and the long reach of systems of surveillance, authority, and control," said Saines. "Her artworks conceal surreptitious yet razor-sharp barbs among lush arrangements of historical and contemporary emblems of excess." Michael Zavros: The Favourite and eX de Medici: Beautiful Wickedness display at Brisbane's Gallery of Modern Art, Stanley Place, South Brisbane from Saturday, June 24–Monday, October 2, 2023. For further details — or to find out more about the gallery's full 2023 slate — visit its website. Images: installation views of Michael Zavros: The Favourite and eX de Medici: Beautiful Wickedness, Gallery of Modern Art, Brisbane, 2023. © Michael Zavros and eX de Medici / Photographs: Joe Ruckli © QAGOMA.
The Sydney Dance Company has announced they'll be kicking off their 2013 season with a killer show, De Novo, which features costumes by Dion Lee and the music of Sarah Blasko and Nick Wales. The artists are collaborating on artistic director Rafael Bonachela's Emergence, one part of a trio of dance works that make up De Novo. It will be a testament to Bonachela's belief in the value of pop culture and other artistic practices to contribute to contemporary dance, with Blasko's vocals and Wales's soundscape providing the inspirational fuel for the piece. It's certainly piqued our interest, even more so because Lee's and Blasko's aesthetics don't suggest an immediate match. Will it be severely tailored, or adorably vintage? Adorably tailored? The start of a new cultural epoch? The only thing we know for certain is that it will be memorable. The other two works in De Novo have their own lure. Cacti is the product of renowned Swedish choreographer Alexander Ekman, currently working with the Netherlands Dance Theatre, and features 16 dancers, a string quarter, and a dynamic set with the titular cacti. Meanwhile, the third dance, Fanatic, is about a fan outraged over the Alien vs Predator franchise — a choreographic theme as old as star-cross'd romance. De Novo opens in Sydney on March 1. Tickets are available from the SDC website.
These days, scrolling through miles of other people's holiday snaps is as much a part of planning that overseas jaunt as actually booking the flights. And the team at Lonely Planet have just made the whole research thing way easier thanks to their newly launched travel app, Trips. The interactive mobile platform lets users both publish their own content and perv on everyone else's, providing a simple way to discover and share travel experiences, all in the one spot. Similar to Instagram, Trips lets you upload content directly from your phone's photo library, and even bundle pics and videos together to craft stories — bringing to life your Machu Picchu adventures or that pub crawl you took through San Francisco. Creating a profile on the app allows you to follow other users, like their content and save your favourite stories, so you can keep returning to load up on inspo for your next adventure. Users can search by location or theme to discover others' trips or explore top recommendations, as curated by Lonely Planet's own team of writers and editors. Venturing into the world of apps seems a logical step for the digitally savvy travel media company, which launched a travel website long before it was cool. "We understand what the modern traveler wants and have delivered an interactive digital platform that offers an effortless, mobile-first way to document, share and discover remarkable experiences," explained Lonely Planet CEO, Daniel Houghton. Trips is currently available for free on iOS and is set to launch on Android later this year.
When the National Gallery of Victoria hosts its annual Architecture Commission, almost anything can grace the venue's Melbourne grounds on St Kilda Road. Sometimes, that means a colourful mini Parthenon. Or, it might herald a bright pink pool to wade through. A bamboo garden with its own deck, the unforgettable pink carwash — they've each popped up, too; however, in the memorable stakes, a giant inflatable sphere that breathes might just have them beat. The 2023 structure, which'll debut on Sunday, December 3, then stick around until June 2024, is called (This is) Air. One of its aims: to make the invisible substance that's there in its name visible. Australian architect Nic Brunsdon has joined forces with ENESS — the art and technology company behind public artworks such as Sky Castle, Airship Orchestra, Cupid's Koi Garden, Lost Dogs' Disco and more — on a work that will expand with air, then release it. So, yes, it will inhale and exhale all day. Based on its concept images alone, (This is) Air is certain to make quite the sight. No one in the vicinity will be able to miss it, either, given that it'll span 14 metres in height when it's fully inflated. To get to that measurement, it'll use air as a building material. And when it breathes out, it'll do so by releasing gusts, forming different cloud-like shapes, then filling back to capacity again. Brunsdon and ENESS also want everyone taking in (This is) Air to think about humanity's need for and relationship to air. While you're peering at the commission, you'll see air in action and notice how essential it is. Also highlighted: how dependent we all are upon the element, how finite it is and how its quality is being impacted. "The idea for this project was conceived by the architect during the global pandemic, when the air we breathed was suddenly at the forefront of everyone's mind. Taking the form of a giant inflatable sphere, this living structure inhales and exhales before our eyes, giving presence to that omnipresent yet invisible element that connects us all," said Ewan McEoin, the NGV's Senior Curator, Contemporary Art, Design and Architecture. "Air can be understood as part of our global economic, social and ecological realities. And yet, the quality of air we breathe varies depending on where and how we live. Air is universal, yet clean air is not." As (This is) Air gets viewers pondering, it's also designed to be uplifting. As is always the case with the NGV's yearly commission, it'll provide a place for accompanying performances and other public programs in the NGV Garden, too. When the sphere is unveiled, it'll form part of this year's NGV Triennial exhibition, which will display from Sunday, December 3, 2023–Sunday, April 7, 2024. On the agenda: robot dogs, a room-sized ode to plants, Yoko Ono's work and more, with 75 works set to feature, including more than 25 world-premiere projects. The art showcase will respond to the themes magic, matter and memory, with (This is) Air fitting in with the matter strand. '(This is) Air' will be on display at NGV International, St Kilda Road, Melbourne from Sunday, December 3, 2023–June 2024 — head to the NGV website for further details. Images: Renders of (This is) Air by Nic Brunsdon, the 2023 NGV Architecture Commission on display at NGV International, Melbourne from 3 December 2023. Renders courtesy of Nic Brunsdon.
Forget simply relaxing in hot tubs. You can watch movies in them, sing in them — and now, thanks to Japan's newest amusement park, you can take rides in them too. After originally floating the idea late last year, the city of Beppu in Oita Prefecture has made every spa-lover's dreams come true, opening a theme park dedicated to sitting in steaming water. Yes, an onsen merry-go-round, a hot tub-themed rollercoaster that spurts bubbles and foam dance parties are on offer at Beppu Rakutenchi, all coming to fruition after the concept proved such a hit. When Beppu Mayor Yasuhiro Nagano pledged his support in a video that understandably went viral, more than AU$900,000 was raised by eager, would-be hot tub theme park goers to turn the kind of concept you'd expect to see in a sci-fi comedy into a reality. If you're wondering why this spa-tastic park has come really about — other than the obvious response: why not? — the city's geography has the answer. Located on the island of Kyushu, Beppu is known for its eight hot springs and 2900 vents, so making a fun attraction out of the natural feature was always going to happen at some point. The park's initial run lasted three days, with no word yet on how and when it might continue. Via Japan Today. Image: Fredrik Rubensson via Flickr.
When any and every film festival rolls around, plenty of numbers get mentioned. With the 2022 Sydney Film Festival now fast approaching, the Harbour City's annual cinema showcase is no different. This year will mark the fest's whopping 69th event, as well Festival Director Nashen Moodley's 11th time bringing the latest and greatest flicks to the glorious State Theatre and other Sydney picture palaces — and, if its first 22 movies are anything to go by, it's set to be another winner. There's no such thing as a bad SFF, of course, because its program always spans so far and wide — and how you watch your way through it is always dictated by personal choice. But 2022's event already has a new Aussie horror standout that proved a hit at SXSW, the latest from freshly minted Oscar-winner Jessica Chastain, multiple Sundance award recipients, and the new comedy from inimitable Berberian Sound Studio, The Duke of Burgundy and In Fabric filmmaker Peter Strickland. Yes, we're already spoiled for choice. Taking place between Wednesday, June 8–Sunday, June 19 — back in its usual timeslot after moving to November in 2021 due to lockdowns and restrictions — SFF 2022 will show some local love to Sissy, the aforementioned Australian horror film. Starring The Bold Type's Aisha Dee, it follows a successful social media influencer who gets stuck in a remote cabin with her old high-school bully. Also in the homegrown camp: street dancing documentary Keep Stepping, car-bound docudrama The Plains and the music fest-focused 6 Festivals, with the latter about three friends who decide to hit up as many live gigs as possible after one is diagnosed with brain cancer, and also featuring cameos by the likes of Bliss n Eso and Peking Duk. Hailing from further afield are the Chastain-starring The Forgiven, which also marks the latest movie by Calvary and War on Everyone's John Michael McDonagh; Strickland's Flux Gourmet, which sees the director reteam with Game of Thrones' Gwendoline Christie; 80s-set, Charlotte Gainsbourg-led Parisian drama The Passengers of the Night; and genderqueer musical Please Baby Please, which follows a 50s couple in Manhattan who witness a violent incident and undergo a sexual awakening. Or, there's also Sundance Film Festival-winning doco The Territory, which follows an Indigenous fightback over rainforest land seized for farming; Yuni, the latest coming-of-age tale by Indonesian The Seen and Unseen filmmaker Kamila Andini; We Met in Virtual Reality, a documentary filmed entirely inside the world of VR; and Incredible But True, a time-travel caper from Deerskin and Rubber's Quentin Dupieux. Other titles of interest include Bootlegger, which stars Reservation Dogs' Devery Jacobs; doco A House Made of Splinters, another Sundance winner that was filmed in pre-invasion Ukraine; Sirens, about the Middle East's first all-female, queer death metal band; and Gentle, which stars real-life bodybuilder Eszter Csonka. As for what'll join them — among a lineup that usually spans hundreds of films — that'll be revealed on Wednesday, May 11. You can already start getting ready to spend most of June in a cinema, though, obviously. The 2022 Sydney Film Festival will run between Wednesday, June 8–Sunday, June 19. Check out the event's just-announced titles by heading to the festival website. The full program will be released on Wednesday, May 11 — head back here then for the rundown.
When you think of goods made out of recycled cardboard, the most common objects that would spring to mind would probably be cereal boxes, toilet paper or drink bottles. A fully-functioning bicycle would most likely not make the top of the list. Yet, now thanks to Israeli bike enthusiast, Izhar Gafni, it will certainly appear somewhere on that list. Gafni has created a bicycle made entirely of recycled cardboard, and all using only $9 of material. The bike functions just like a normal bike, is water resistant and can carry riders of up to a massive 220kg. Despite the material costing between $9-$12 for each bicycle, Gafni is looking to sell his product for $60-$90 a pop, depending on the extra addition of an electrical motor. Nevertheless, this innovative creation is believed to change the world of bicycles by being significantly more eco-friendly and well within consumer's budgets. The inspiration for the recycled bike came after Gafni saw news that an inventor had developed a canoe made from recycled cardboard. Even through the skepticism and doubt he received, Gafni persevered with his idea and three years later achieved what three different engineers had thought to be impossible. Gafni's recycled bicycle has since been made into four different prototypes including one with training wheels for children. He is currently working with investors to establish a company that can produce and distribute his bikes on a global scale.
Since opening in 2012, Morningside's Southside Tea Room has become a true Brisbane institution. Co-owned by couple Patience Hodgson and John Patterson of The Grates, the Southside Tearoom is known for its relaxed atmosphere, unusual events (including the incredibly popular Always Sunny in Philadelphia trivia night) and vintage tropical aesthetic. “We wanted to create a relaxed, unpretentious suburban oasis,” Patience says. “When we lived in the States we fell in love with all the neighbourhood bars, and that's what we were dreaming of replicating in Brisbane.” Like any loyal Brisbanite, she also loves to talk about the weather. “I love the weather,” she says. “I'm so conditioned to good weather in Brisbane that I feel like I get micro-seasonal depression when it rains for stretches longer than two days. We all joke about it, but I think it's a genuine thing!” Patience and John have just welcomed a new baby into the fold, but that hasn’t slowed them down. Here are Patience’s five steps to the perfect weekend (even if you have a baby in tow). DIP YOUR TOES IN WYNNUM’S FAMOUS WADING POOL Well worth a day trip, Wynnum is a suburb just 30 minutes drive out from Brisbane’s CBD. “The Wynnum wading pool is a rad glimpse into ye olde Brisbane,” Patience says. “Basically it's a pool that fills with sea water that's been there for almost 100 years. It's still got loads of character even though they renovated it about ten years ago. The locals are a hoot, and there's plenty of classic fish & chip shops close by.” While you’re there, check out the quality op-shopping on offer along and just off Bay Terrace. EAT LUNCH AT PERRETT'S PIES “While in Wynnum go to Perrett's Pies," Patience says. "It's one of the oldest bakeries in Brisbane, dating back to 1970. They still use the same pie trays and cake moulds so you'll notice everything is a little smaller then modern times. It’s run by a hilarious Irish man and their Neenish Tarts are to die for.” There ain’t nothing more Queensland than eating a sauce-slathered pie by the ocean, so tuck in. DINNER AT POPOLO IN SOUTH BANK When you get back into town, be sure to head down to South Bank, the precinct that boasts the famous inner city beach, Streets Beach. There are plenty of places to have dinner while gazing over the twinkly Brisbane river, but Patience recommends Popolo. “Popolo in South Bank is a must do. It's right on the river with spectacular views of the city. My mouth is watering just thinking about their truffle polenta and their chilli clams, and they also make great cocktails.” ARCHERFIELD SPEEDWAY “Head down to Archerfield Speedway on a Saturday night," says Patience. This is one seriously decibel-raising, out-of-town adventure. "Super loud, and, once you've forked out your ticket price, super cheap inside. Heck, they serve beer out of a shipping container that's emblazoned with a faded 4XXXX Gold logo. Kids run around playing footy with empty coke bottles and lifers bring their own ice boxes filled with home-brand soft drinks even on nine degree nights. It’s amazing. And yes, the chips are covered in chicken salt!” TREAT YOURSELF TO A PROPER HAIRCUT AT BAREBONES BARBERS “Barebones Barbers in Morningside is great," says Patience. "It’s an original barber shop run by fresh young blokes. Steve, one of the owners, was the last man in Australia to actually get qualified through a barber course; they’ve since pushed it into the hairdressing accreditation. He was trained up by the old bloke who used to own the place, and a year ago, he retired and left the shop for Steve to take over. Even if you don't need a haircut, just get one because these guys are the real deal — ex-ship makers and tradesmen who now find satisfaction in other people hair.”
Rumour has it, Prince is set to announce a nationwide tour in Australia for later this year. With two international superstars down under - that’s The Artist Formerly Known As (or, did he move on from that one already?) and the Lady herself - Concrete Playground is here to help consider your chances of actually getting to see them performing live. And, just for fun, seeing which of the two will leave the biggest impression. Ding ding! Round One: getting a ticket The odds are pretty slim for getting a ticket for Gaga now. If you’ve only just found out she’s touring, you’re already too late. Her ‘Born This Way Ball’ tour was an instant sell-out, even with the additional shows announced earlier this month. Unless you already have a ticket, fancy creating a flash mob of ‘Monsters’ to convince the promoters to stick on a few extra dates, or you don’t mind risking other (illegal/stupid/unlikely) methods of getting into an arena, you’re better off flexing your index finger ready for the online ticket-booking mayhem once dates are confirmed for Prince. His Australia tour will be announced this week. Round Two: who are you going to tell your grandkids about? One is a flamboyant singer-songwriter, known for their unconventional performances, controversial fashion style, and a larger-than-life stage persona. And the other... well, you get the picture. There have been comparisons before, even ones that delve deep into the penis/no-penis debate - for both musicians. But what we want to know, is which one will still make the ‘When I was a young hipster...’ bedtime stories that you’ll still be bragging about when you’re 80? Will it be Telephone Head? Or Raspberry Beret? Round Three: who will deliver the KO (gig)? Purple Rain, Kiss, U Got the Look, 1999... it’s likely that you can expect them all from the legendary 53-year-old singer who’s had decades to perfect his shows. Last year, Prince’s US tour, at which tickets sold for as little as US$25, was a beginning-to-end greatest hits mega show. Gaga’s worldwide ‘Monster Ball Tour’, on the other hand, was the highest grossing tour of all time - so, it’s fair to say she knows what she’s doing by now. But, after all that, we have to draw you back to the facts. Lady Gaga is coming, she’ll be here in June with zillions of supporters and, probably an amazing show. And Prince is coming (finger’s crossed), and - now that you’re prepared, you may actually get your hands on a ticket or two. So, we say, let Gaga have her Monsters - we’ll be rockin’ out with Prince.
A perfectly made cocktail is one of life's simple pleasures, though the process of whipping up creative beverages is far from simple. A moment on the lips is the result of minutes of hard work at a minimum, not to mention the time spent concocting recipes, perfecting them and shopping for ingredients. In short, unless you're a professional mixologist, it's not always something you can replicate at home. Enter The Mixery, the new Australian service that knows we all like drinking cocktails, and that we all often have the plonk, but not the rest of the requirements or the know-how. Delivering everywhere across the country, the subscription-based outfit brings monthly boxes to your door, filled with almost everything you'll need to mix up 12 delicious beverages. We say almost, because they're stocking you up with the items you won't have — including three recipes, plus enough bits and pieces for four drinks of each — while relying upon you to provide your own alcohol. To make things simple, each delivery focuses on one type of tipple, with The Mixery's first box showering the love on gin. Cocktails such as the spicy Earl the Grey, herb-infused The Basilisk and refreshingly floral Rosed Up on the menu, aka stellar spring drinks. Those eager to imbibe can order boxes on a one-off basis, or sign up for an ongoing shipment for $40 per month plus a $5 monthly delivery fee. A party box is also on offer, with prices starting at $70. It features a big enough stash of ingredients to make either eight or 15 of each cocktail — as well as an 'easy mix' option, which means you can just throw everything into a jug, add booze and stir. For more information about The Mixery, visit their website.
Yes, it was Agatha All Along — the title for Marvel and Disney+'s WandaVision spinoff about Agatha Harkness, that is. Since the show was announced back in 2021, it has been given plenty of names, but House of Harkness, Coven of Chaos and Darkhold Diaries aren't sticking around as the miniseries' moniker. Instead, it's going with the tune that everyone who saw the character's first on-screen appearance now has stuck in their heads. Also new: a release date for the show. Agatha All Along will hit streaming queues from Wednesday, September 18, 2024. If nothing else joins the Marvel slate between now and then, that'll make it just the second Marvel Cinematic Universe TV series of the year, after Echo (by design, with the Mouse House noting several times that it wants to better space out its releases). View this post on Instagram A post shared by Marvel Studios (@marvelstudios) When the MCU made the leap to Disney+ back in 2021, WandaVision was the first program to arrive. It also finally made everyone take notice of the always-great Kathryn Hahn (Tiny Beautiful Things), who stole every scene she was in each and every time that she popped up — hence Agatha All Along getting the green light. Obviously, WandaVision was about Wanda and Vision, with Avengers: Endgame's Elizabeth Olsen (Love & Death) and Paul Bettany (A Very British Scandal) reprising their roles. But Hahn played a significant part as neighbour-slash-witch Agatha, even nabbing an Emmy nomination for her efforts. So, because she was such a fan favourite, Disney magicked her up her own show. Hahn returns, of course, to play a character that has a considerable history — only some of which WandaVision dived into. In comic books, she's been around since the 70s. Story-wise, her tale dates back to the Salem witch trials. Agatha All Along also stars Joe Locke (Heartstopper), Patti LuPone (Beau Is Afraid), Aubrey Plaza (Scott Pilgrim Takes Off), Sasheer Zamata (Unfrosted), Emma Caulfield Ford (a Buffy the Vampire Slayer alum) and Debra Jo Rupp (That '90s Show). There's no trailer for Agatha All Along yet, but you can get the Emmy-winning tune of the same name stuck in your head below: Agatha All Along will be available to stream via Disney+ from Wednesday, September 18, 2024. Read our review of WandaVision. Images: Marvel Studios, Disney.
I love the idea of growing my own food. The problem is, I’m one of those people who only has to look at a plant for it to turn into an aphid colony. I’m pretty convinced Indira Naidoo is a magician fronting as a journo and gardener of edible balconies. If you know what I’m talking about, here’s some good news. A couple of graduates from MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology) have created a personal farm that you can grow in your kitchen. And they know it works because they’ve already been providing home-grown veg to their college friends. Named ‘The Grove’, the farm looks a bit like a trendy hutch. It’s actually comprised of plant modules stacked on top of one another. A fish tank is included to provide nutrients. You don’t need any soil, because growth happens through aquaponics. But you do need to know how to work a smartphone. The ‘Grove OS’ enables users to monitor and control variables such as pH levels, moisture and temperature, as well as buy plants. All you have to do is swipe through and click on any vegetable, herb or fruit that catches your eye. “Farming — how we feed our growing and urbanising population — is a big problem on so many levels,” says Grove Labs CEO Gabe Blanchet. “A fundamental shift in culture enabled by powerful but simple technology, is the solution we, as humans, desperately need.” Pre-orders are available online. Via PSFK.
There's an antidote to winter and it's pubs with roaring fires, cosy whisky bars, experimental art galleries and winter dishes whipped up by brilliant chefs. You'll find all these in high concentration in the creative, inner-city Sydney neighbourhoods of Surry Hills, Redfern and Chippendale, just beyond the CBD. With a short break revolving around their famous galleries, bars and restaurants — and a night or two in one of the nearby AccorHotels properties — you'll be welcoming the cold weather rather than wishing it away. Here's your guide to a winter weekender in urban Surry Hills, Redfern and Chippendale. EAT AND DRINK Getting out of bed on a frosty morning is much, much easier when you know that good coffee awaits. You'll get just that – and, on a cloud-free day, a generous dose of sunlight – among the high ceilings of Surry Hills' Paramount Coffee Project. Another cheery spot is nearby Suzie Q, where the morning menu includes Wintertime Love: a brekkie bowl loaded with quinoa, almond hummus, fermented pumpkin, pickled cauliflower, kale, avocado, poached egg and toasted nuts. Alternatively, to warm up with freshly baked goods, swing by Chippendale's Brickfields Bakery or Redfern's extremely popular Donut Papi. Yes, a doughnut for breakfast is the definitive answer to the wintertime blues. Among the area's most tempting lunchtime offerings is fried chicken ramen, which you'll find at Butter, a hybrid eatery-retail space with an impressive rare sneaker collection. The dish was such a hit in 2017 that head chef Julian Cincotta brought it back for another round. Burger fiends, The O.G from Eve's Bar is one to tick off your burger bucket list: a classic beef, cheese, lettuce, tomato and mustard mayo combo topped with a mini cheese burger on top (because one is never enough). Another option is a Japanese-inspired burger at Ume — think crumbed chicken katsu with yuzu kosho mayo and tonkatsu sauce. That's pretty much enough fuel to get you through to spring. If you're ready to indulge at dinnertime, then head to the newish Kensington Street Precinct. The quintessential dining experience here is Automata, a 2015 opening that was named one of the Diners Club World's 50 Best Restaurants and whose head chef, Clayton Wells, has been showered with awards. This is a degustation-only deal where contemporary Australian flavours like romanesco, broccolini, sour cucumber, dory roe emulsion combine in one dish. The cluster of more casual restaurants and stalls around Spice Alley are Jason Atherton's Kensington Street Social also vie for your attention here. Other cosy dinner spots are double-hatted Ester, LP's Quality Meats for smoked and cured delights, Melbourne transplant Chin Chin for spicy Asian, Spice I Am for authentic Thai and Happy D's for dumplings. All wintry evenings should end with a beverage in front of a crackling open fire. In Surry Hills alone, there are three pubs with just that: The Dolphin, the Cricketers Arms and Harpoon Harry. Alternatively, for a cocktail, go to Mjolner, a labyrinthine bar filled with cavernous rooms inspired by Thor, or, for a whisky, the Wild Rover. DO With the lure of beach-going reduced, winter is a great time to catch up on art. And Surry Hills, Redfern and Chippendale are perfect places for it, being absolutely packed with galleries. Get started at Brett Whiteley Studio, where the famous avant-garde artist lived and worked, before heading to White Rabbit, to peruse one of the biggest collections of 21st-century Chinese art in the world. Afterwards, take a wander around Chippendale's back streets, to stumble across stacks of independent and experimental galleries. Look out for Galerie Pompom for shows by emerging artists, Tiny Tailor for designer creations and Goodspace, where, with the support of local pub the Lord Gladstone, artists exhibit commission-free. Come evening, swap art for live performance. There's jazz, blues and funk at Venue 505, rock bands at the Lansdowne Hotel, DJs and various live acts at Freda's and all kinds of sexy – and not-so-sexy – stuff at the Bearded Tit. Meanwhile, for theatre, comedy and talks, check out the Old 505, Giant Dwarf and the Seymour Centre. You'll be so busy, you won't have time to think about the cold. SLEEP To keep up with so many adventures, a super-sound sleep is crucial. The good news is there are a few nearby hotels where you can count on being cosy and warm. To go 4.5-star, book at the Novotel Sydney Central. The sunny, colour-splashed rooms feel happy — on even the chilliest of days. All come with lovely king-sized beds (or two queens, if you so choose) and the Superior rooms with private balconies. Wherever you sleep, you'll be welcome to swim in the heated rooftop pool and hang out in the garden terrace. Also be sure to make a stop at the Field House Bar during happy hour from 5–7pm and enjoy $5 house drinks and two-for-one cocktails, accompanied by live entertainment on Friday and Saturday nights. An alternative is the 4-star Mercure Sydney, right near Central Station and a short walk from the sizzle of Spice Alley and Kensington Street. Keen to splurge? Reserve a city-view room, with panoramas of the Sydney CBD skyline. There's also a rooftop gym, sauna and indoor heated pool (winter dip, anyone?). For a fortifying meal before you hit the road home, stop by the in-house diner Eve's Bar for an OG Burger — not only does it have the works, it comes skewered with a mini cheeseburger. If you're looking for bang for your buck, then the Ibis Sydney World Square is for you. Located within a stone's throw of Surry Hills, Chippendale, Redfern and the CBD, it's spacious, clean and close to the wildly praised new bars and restaurants you came this way to see. Go to the AccorHotels website to book your stay in Sydney, and to discover more of NSW, check out Visit NSW.
"Oh no, I like hip hop, I just hate Aussie hip hop." It's an all too common refrain heard at parties all over the country — well, inner city Sydney at least — as bearded Das Racist fans explain just why the world will never see another J-Dilla again. And I get it, Aussie hip hop, in its most common (read: popular (read: commercial)) incarnation, as personified by the likes of Hilltop Hoods and Bliss n Eso, is an acquired taste to say the least. But fear not intrepid reader, for if you're sick of the overblown ocker-isms, zealous xenophobia — so prevalent that The Hoods felt compelled to write a whole song about it — and sunburnt Southern Cross tattoos that have become emblematic of Aussie hip hop, then we've got five emerging local hip-hop artists to restore your faith. 1. Remi Holy shit, this guy is b-b-b-b-b-blowing UP! Probably the most well known of our hip hop offerings, this Melbourne MC was last year's triple j Unearthed Artist of the Year. The 23-year-old rapper has embarked on a national tour of his second album Raw x Infinity, which dropped just a few weeks ago. Taking cues from the faded finesse of early West Coast hip hop and the raw 'realness' of The Roots combined with a healthy dose of braggadocio, Remi likes to rap about hitting the blunt but isn't afraid to get political either; calling out passé Aussie hip hop tropes and conservative close-mindedness. Unlike generic 'skip hop' whose biggest message seems to be: 'How good are barbeques with your mates?' Remi is an artist with something to say — and he's not afraid to say it. Catch Remi at Oxford Art Factory this Saturday, June 28. Tickets available here. https://youtube.com/watch?v=oHmuZ7wDl4E 2. Coin Banks With tracks from Ta-ku and lyrics sent from the heavens, Coin Banks is already a force to be reckoned with. Having popped into our collective musical consciousness thanks to triple j's fairly regular rotation of his groundbreaking single 'Think of You', the Perth rapper hasn't looked back. The eloquent lyricism of his debut EP Heads made waves Australia-wide in the lead up to his debut national tour, pulling shapes at Sydney's Beresford, Melbourne's Espy and Laundry and Brisbane's Alhambra Lounge over the last few weeks. https://youtube.com/watch?v=WaAWTXNaqJU 3. Citizen Kay You may not have heard of this Canberra-based MC yet but he's already supported the likes of Public Enemy, Earl Sweatshirt, Danny Brown, Run the Jewels and Wiz Khalifa, all in the last year alone. And he's earned those support slots — Citizen Kay's cheeky wordplay flows effortlessly over some of the catchiest hooks outside of the fish market. He's by far the most interesting thing to have come out of our nation's capital since… Well, look, Canberra's pretty boring. Catch Citizen Kay on his national Vision tour: Saturday 13 July at Sydney's FBi Social, Friday 19 July at Melbourne's Revolver, and Friday 2 August at Brisbane's Alhambra Lounge. https://youtube.com/watch?v=qfMLYVi0uv0 4. Tkay Maidza As if hanging out with DJ Lance Rock while supporting super-weird-but-amazing US kids show Yo Gabba Gabba! wasn't cool enough, this young Radelaidean femcee is set to explode into the Australian music consciousness when she brings her self-described 'Dinojams' — code for epic dancefloor rap — to this year's Splendour in the Grass. One of the most promising female rappers to have emerged from the sausage fest that is Aussie hip hop, Tkay Maidza may only have one official single under her belt but if it's anything to go by she's going to be massive. If you're not already stomping your feet like a Brontosaurus, get ready to make some serious noise. Catch Tkay Maidza at many an Aussie festival coming up — Splendour in the Grass on June 25, BIGSOUND on September 10 or Listen Out nationwide from September 27 - Oct 5. https://youtube.com/watch?v=vV9lX9fQubY 5. N'fa Whilst technically not a newcomer, the artist formerly known as N'fa Jones has rebranded himself as just N'fa so we're counting it. You may know him better as the frontman for 1200 Techniques, the guys behind the early 2000s surprise hit 'Karma'. (WARNING: viewing this clip and its Punch & Judy-style rendering of the band may induce severe nostalgia for waking up early on a Saturday to watch Rage before your parents got up.) N'fa has kept the soulful, genre-melding sound that typified 1200 Techniques but has added a more introspective, personal feel to his latest solo offering Black & White Noise. It's not what you expect from Aussie hip hop and in this instance, that's a very good thing. If you want to hear him on the solo tip, check out the banger below — with none other than British hip-hop legend Roots Manuva. Catch N'fa at Melbourne's Howler for Hip Hip Sundays on June 29, along with M-Phazes, Flagrant and Peril (and it's free).
Much of 2017 might seem like it has been ripped from an episode of Black Mirror, but the real thing is about to show us just how grim the future could be. The Charlie Brooker-created TV show is set to return for its fourth season later in the year, and it has dropped its first sneak peek. Spoiler: things really do look grim. Headed to Netflix at a yet-to-be-revealed date, the new Black Mirror will consist of six instalments filled with more unnerving satire about humanity's relationship with technology. Although the new clip is really just that, announcing the series' episode titles with suitably moody snippets, expect snowy peaks, spooky blonde-haired kids, Star Trek-style space jaunts, monstrous robots and more. Each new chapter's moniker is certain to pique plenty of interest, with names such as 'Arkangel', 'Black Museum', 'Crocodile', 'Hang the DJ', 'Metalhead' and 'USS Callister'. In addition, the new season's directors and main cast members have also been revealed. Brooker himself wrote every new instalment, while the likes of Jodie Foster, Australian filmmaker John Hillcoat (The Road, Triple 9), Peaky Blinders' Colm McCarthy and American Gods' David Slade are sitting in the helmer's chair. On screen, expect a cast that includes La La Land's Rosemarie DeWitt, Nocturnal Animals' Andrea Riseborough and Fargo's Jesse Plemons getting up to the kind of sci-fi antics that no one wants to dream of. Check out the trailer below in preparation for a whole new round of futuristic bleakness. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oH85obU350E
Where can you play a music game show, watch well-known folks do the same, and possibly spend the evening in the company of Spicks and Specks favourite Myf Warhurst or Murray Cook from The Wiggles — or Broden Kelly and Mark Samual Bonanno from Aunty Donna, Boy Swallows Universe author Trent Dalton, Agro, Ben Lee, Steven Bradbury, Kate Miller-Heidke, Robert Irwin, Ranger Stacey, Craig Lowndes, Tim Rogers, Will Anderson and Adam Hills, plus perhaps members of Powderfinger, Dune Rats, DZ Deathrays, Ruby Fields, Ball Park Music, The Jungle Giants and The Go-Betweens? In Brisbane, there's one answer: at Not on Your Rider. Taking some cues from Spicks and Specks and the UK's Never Mind the Buzzcocks, aka the show that the hit Australian TV series is based, Not On Your Rider gives the big name-filled music quiz panel show format the live treatment. Yes, the audience gets to play, too. And yes, the event is back for 2025. This year, there's a few changes in store — not to the format, but to how and when Brisbanites can head along. After the 2025 season kicks off on Thursday, March 20, it'll mostly return bimonthly. So, mark your calendar for Thursday, May 15, plus Thursday, July 10 and Thursday, September 11 as well. Not On Your Rider's Halloween Spooktacular will be back on Thursday, October 30, while the Christmas show will cap off the year on Thursday, December 18. Also, 2025's events are headed riverside, to the Felons Barrel Hall at Howard Smith Wharves in the Brisbane CBD. This might be a case of new year, new venue, but the setup remains the same otherwise. Attendees will be peering at a stage, rather than a screen — and answering questions themselves, of course. And if it has you thinking about pub trivia nights, they don't include The Creases' Aimon Clark (who is also behind Isolation Trivia) and Patience Hodgson from The Grates hosting, let alone a heap of entertainment-industry guests. Here's how it works: Not on Your Rider takes something that everyone loves — showing off their music trivia knowledge — and dials it up a few notches. While the two on-stage teams are always filled with musos, comedians, drag queens and other guests, anyone can buy a ticket, sit at a table and answer questions along with them. The quiz element is accompanied by chats about the music industry, plus other mini games involving attendees. Not on Your Rider 2025 Brisbane Dates at Felons Barrel Hall Thursday, March 20 Thursday, May 15 Thursday, July 10 Thursday, September 11 Thursday, October 30 — Halloween Spooktacular Thursday, December 18 — Christmas show Not on Your Rider's 2025 Brisbane season runs on various dates until Thursday, December 18 at Felons Barrel Hall, 5 Boundary Street, Brisbane City. For more information or to buy tickets, head to the Not On Your Rider website. Images: Darcy Goss Media / Dave Kan / Bianca Holderness.
Have you ever wanted a way to scientifically quantify which people in your life are literally the worst? You're in luck. A pair of Boston developers has just launched an app that allows users to catalogue their physical and emotional responses during interactions with other human beings. Called pplkpr (because vowels are also the worst), the free iOs app can be synced with third party Bluetooth-enabled heart monitors; like the ones already designed to track your heart rate during a workout. The app then prompts you to record which people from your Facebook friends list you're hanging out with, in order to determine how each of them makes you feel. The app can recognise a whole range of emotional reactions, including fear, boredom, excitement and of course, arousal. You can message people to let them know how they make you feel (if you're feeling confident), rank them based on which emotions they elicit, and ultimately determine which of your social contacts you might be better off without. The longer you use the app, the better it gets at reading your feelings, which definitely isn't creepy at all. Jokes about a grim, Terminator-esque dystopia aside, we suppose we can see the benefits of an application like this, especially if you're trying to cut down on the amount of stress in your life. Using software to 'auto-manage your relationships' may seem a little cold, but then again, is it really that much worse than Tinder? Pplkpr is available to download via the iTunes store. It's not currently available on Android, because as everybody knows, Android users are stressed out by every last one of their iPleb friends. Via Mashable.
Young Henrys have teamed up with Brisbane boys Dune Rats and have given a beautiful birth to the Dunies Lager, which the band calls, "A can so cold it'll cool ya house." The brand new brew, like most great inventions, came from a pub bet. "We hung out with our mates Young Henrys one arvo and it came up that we were gunning for number one when our new album dropped," the band says. "The fellas said if you get the top spot we'll brew you your own beer." So when the Dune Rats' second album, The Kids Will Know It's Bullshit, unsurprisingly made its debut on the ARIA charts at numero uno, the lads at Young Henrys stuck to their word and knocked up a batch of crisp lager to honour the bet. Behold, the bet winners: And let's face it, the equally-as-happy-looking bet losers: The Dunies Lager is sold in tinnies, either in the six pack or by the case, with a Dune Rats-yellow design by artist Lee McConnell. On top of that, a select few venues around Sydney will be treated to a keg or two, so there'll be the chance to whet your whistle with the draft stuff. Now, you can't release the product of a beautiful union like Young Henrys and Dune Rats without throwing a big ol' party to celebrate, and the Dunies Lager won't be an exception. There's a shindig going down this Sunday, February 26 in Darlinghurst. Tickets are free, but there are only 200 available here, so best to get in quick. Mary's will be onsite with food available to purchase and and everyone through the door before 8pm will get a free drink on arrival. The combination of bands and booze isn't a new one. It's not even Young Henrys first foray, having created the Pils 'N' Thrills with DZ Deathrays last year. However, a brand new beer from a brewery and a band like Young Henrys and Dune Rats is nothing to shake a stick at, so check out the Young Henrys website for further instructions on how the blow the froth off a few cold ones.
When a TV show or movie franchise returns years and years after its last instalment, there's no longer any point being surprised. It happens that often these days, with Veronica Mars, Twin Peaks, Star Wars and Jurassic Park just a few recent examples. The latest past pop culture hit set to make a comeback: Sex and the City. Thankfully, as anyone who sat through the terrible 2008 and 2010 movies of the same name will be hoping, the Sarah Jessica Parker-starring series is returning to the small screen this time around. Parker is back, as are her co-stars Kristin Davis and Cynthia Nixon, all starring in a new HBO show called And Just Like That.... The new ten-episode series is a spinoff, rather than an additional season of the existing 1998–2004 program — and there's one big difference. As revealed in the official announcement, the show will follow Carrie (Parker), Miranda (Nixon) and Charlotte (Davis). That means that the character of Samantha isn't part of the revival, and neither is actor Kim Cattrall, who played her. Parker, Davis and Nixon are also named as producers on And Just Like That..., alongside Michael Patrick King, who worked as a writer, director and executive producer on the original (and on the two movies). HBO hasn't released too many other details; however the US network has advised that the series will follow its three main characters "as they navigate the journey from the complicated reality of life and friendship in their 30s to the even more complicated reality of life and friendship in their 50s". In America, And Just Like That... is headed to HBO Max, the network's streaming platform. Just when the program will hit and where it'll be available elsewhere (including Down Under) haven't yet been revealed. While you're waiting for the new series, you can check out a clip from the original below — or, in Australia, you can stream Sex and the City's six seasons via Binge: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5fFNOGU_QRU And Just Like That... doesn't currently have an airdate, either in the US or Down Under, but we'll update you when one is announced.
If you're all about that low-key life, then look away now, because you're not going to find it at Pop Masters: Art From the Mugrabi Collection, New York. Instead, the art exhibition — which will be residing in the Gold Coast's HOTA (Home of the Arts) until Sunday, June 4, 2023 — is a vibe of everything bold, beautiful and even a little brash, making it a perfect addition to the locale literally known as The Glitter Strip. The show, which takes its name from the private collection of art collector Jose Mugrabi, will bring Big Apple cool to Queensland's coastal capital. On display in this world-exclusive, first-time-in-Australia exhibition are pieces by Andy Warhol, Keith Haring and Jean-Michel Basquiat (pictured below), as well as a crew of contemporaries like Katherine Bernhardt, Kwesi Botchway, George Condo, Damien Hirst, Kaws, Joel Mesler, Richard Prince, Tom Sachs, Julian Schnabel, Mickalene Thomas and Tom Wesselmann. [caption id="attachment_880980" align="alignnone" width="1920"] Jean-Michel Basquiat 1985 ©️ Lizzie Himmel. Artwork ©️ Estate of Jean-Michel Basquiat. Licensed by Artestar, New York.[/caption] Does this add a mustn't-miss arty vibe to the state of sunshine, shopping strips and soaring roller coasters? Absolutely. However, if you're concerned about wasting precious beach time, you'll be happy to hear that HOTA is also offering an after-hours event. Held on Friday May 19, from 6.30–10pm, Up Late will give guests the chance to enjoy the exhibition in a whole new light (well, technically dark). Completing the concrete jungle experience, expect an evening of DJs spinning old-school Brooklyn-influenced hip hop, pop-up performances and delish food and drinks — specifically, hot dogs, pretzels, standout cocktails and even a five-course dinner, all inspired by the Empire State. Pop Masters: Art From the Mugrabi Collection, New York is on at HOTA until Sunday, June 4. For further details and to book tickets, head to the website.
Walking around Brisbane is a great way to enjoy your own backyard, see the local sights and get in some exercise. And for a 17-day period between Friday, June 24 and Sunday, July 10, doing just that will also allow you to engage with a series of interactive installations. They're called 'curiocities', and they're part of the returning Curiocity Brisbane festival, which focuses on the interaction of science, technology, innovation and the arts. This year, the festival's been curated by local artist, curator and academic Jay Younger. If this all sounds familiar — and not just from past years — that's because Curiocity Brisbane was planned to go live during World Science Festival Brisbane in March. But, no fear — it's here now! And enlivening a month of winter with its buzzing lineup of art-meets-science creativity, panel discussions and tours. First things first, lace up your walking shoes. This year, the festival will guide you past 20 outdoor, interactive installations, displayed along a 5km walking trail — snaking through South Bank, South Brisbane's Cultural Precinct, the City Botanic Gardens and the CBD. Standout installations include Acknowledging Place, which asks participants to sit and consider an Indigenous perspective of caring for Country; public sculpture OHCE/ECHO, which captures your portrait and embeds it in the work; and The Wandering Birds Have Returned to the River (Even Bernice), featuring imaginary giant bird nests made out of repurposed and reusable consumer goods. Other Curiocity must-sees include Luminous Threads, which combines embroidery with modern fibre optic technology; Mirage Project [Iceberg], which uses stereoscopic photography to inlay an iceberg from Antarctica into South Bank; and light and soundscape In the Air, a time-lapse piece that uses data from Antarctic ice-core samples to map changes over the past 400,000 years in a half-hour music and light show. Looking for some boundary-pushing chit chat? The Curious Conversations offering is for you. On Sunday, June 26, Art, AI & Empathy will see Younger and artist Georgie Pinn dive headfirst into the question of whether immersive technology can teach us to be better humans. Hidden in the Trees will highlight the intricacies present at the intersection of our devices and understanding of our natural world on Sunday, July 3. And First Nations artists will discuss their creative pieces and the communicative role art plays in awareness and protection of Country at Art, Science & Indigenous Knowledge on Sunday, July 10. If you want someone with the intel to explain the art to you, nab a spot in one of two free walking tours guided by the festival curator herself. The Curiocity Brisbane Tour will start at the Wheel of Brisbane on Wednesday, June 29, and the State Library of Queensland on Wednesday, July 6. Ready to explore, create and play? Head to the website to plan your visit and register for a free Curious Conversations session.
We're toes deep in cotton socks and this can only mean one thing — Brisbane has been plunged into the depths of July. Yes, winter is here. At night there is a frost to the air, and humidity is becoming but a distant cousin. You've been spending a concerning amount of time in bed, your social life is in peril and your doona has become your closest relationship. The time is now to leave your other half behind, crawl out from under the covers, grab that one jacket you own and get out. The mission to find the best warm cocktails started out as a mere novelty bar crawl, but at the other end we've learnt three lessons: One, there is more to cocktails than crushed ice; two, many come with a free fire show; and most importantly, three, there is a true craft to getting warm drinks right (it's not all steam, gas and flames). Canvas: Soul Lover No.1 What gets you up when you’re down? The Soul Lover No.1 from Canvas. With a blend of horny goat weed, damiana and passion flower included, it will be more than the alcohol affecting your decisions tonight. Tsingleton scotch, Illegal Mezcal, dark cocoa, black walnut and yellow chartreuse also go in the mix to make what tastes like an alcoholic hot chocolate. It’s served in a teacup topped with smoked whipped cream and mini marshmallows. If it doesn’t sound like your cup of tea (heh) Canvas does three other warm ones – try Professor Geraldo. 16 Logan Road, Woolloongabba Emporium: Provencal Hot Toddy The folks behind Emporium Bar always produce a stellar cocktail menu, and Winter 2014 is no exception. We could go on about the caramel popcorn martini or Morning Tea gin one, but we’re here about warmth today. Emporium offers the Provencal Hot Toddy. In what essentially is warm apple juice that makes you a bit giggly, Martell VS cognac, Le Birlou apple and chestnut liqueur, lemon, apple juice and oregeat combine in a teacup topped with flaked almonds and fresh nutmeg. 1000 Ann Street, Fortitude Valley Hoo Ha Bar: The Lenny We once said “What Hoo Ha do, Hoo Ha do well” and the story is still the same when we’re not talking about milkshakes. Hoo Ha Bar has added ‘The Lenny’ to its winter offering, describing it as ‘a warm milk punch that hugs you in all the right places’. A mix of vodka, salted caramel (our favourite), honey and milk is steamed and sprinkled with chinese five spice and homemade orgeat chocolate. Winter isn’t so bad. 41 Tribune Street, South Brisbane The End: Mulled Wine Pocket-sized The End packs a punch. The small bar is always busy with locals, and they’ve found a surefire way to get you out on the frostiest of nights. The End’s new winter cocktail menu has a whole page dedicated to ‘winter warmers’ – that’s right, four cocktails plus mulled wine make the list. Served in a vintage teacup with a slice of orange, the mulled wine is made in house with Three Brothers shiraz, triple sec, brandy, its own spiced syrup and fresh fruit – better than a cup of earl grey any day. 73 Vulture Street, West End Twig & Berry: Aceso’s Ichor Newbie on the Newstead block, Twig & Berry has thrown up a great first cocktail menu. We went in for ‘Aceso’s Ichor’ (don’t ask us how to say it) – a mix of Martell VS, Luxardo Maraschino, water, lemongrass, cloves, star anise, black pepper, ginger and allspsice brewed with a lemongrass and ginger tea. Served in an espresso teacup, this hot cocktail sure packs a mighty kick and, as the ingredients may have given it away, tastes a lot like chai tea. Delicious alcoholic chai tea. Free fire show included in the making. 9/92 Commercial Road, Newstead Escobar: Hot Toddy New kid on the block, Escobar is doing it’s neighbourhood duty with a sweet winter offering that’ll make you want to claim it as your local. The venue is serving up a hot toddy – bourbon, apple, lemon, sugar and bitters – for a sweet $10 that’ll have you warm from the inside out. Sit down, sip it up and indulge in some old-school boardgames. 4/154 Merthyr Road, New Farm Papa Jack’s: Hot Pumpkin'd Rum Dessert and cocktails – two great loves. What if we told you Papa Jack’s had combined them with its Hot Pumpkin’d Rum? Pumpkin pie fans out there will appreciate the smooth, warm liquid of spiced rum, pumpkin puree, cream, whiskey barrel bitters, cayenne pepper and nutmeg dust. It is served in a small silver goblet – but be warned, this creamy drink packs a peppery kick at the end. Corner Connor & McLachlan Streets, Fortitude Valley Fourth Wall: The Aduous Road We originally said Fourth Wall was ‘our little secret’, but times have changed since we’ve been harping on about it ever since. Fourth Wall is known for its what-do-you-feel-like-tonight cocktail menu, but dive in, ask for The Arduous Road and be rewarded with a hot gin punch. Manager Alex Boon has made it into the top 11 Australian finalists with his Hendrick’s hot gin cocktail and will be jetting off to Vanuatu for the comp in August. We suggest you jet into Fourth Wall now and try this delicious gin, sherry, lemon, peach bitters, and lavender and cucumber shrub concoction. 743 Ann Street, Fortitude Valley The Gresham: Spiced Stoneface Step into The Gresham and back in time. This charming whiskey saloon plays on the days of yesteryear with its cedar tables, dark wooden bar and 20-bulb chandelier hanging three storeys above. The Gresham’s hot offering is the Spiced Stoneface – house-made spiced bourbon, cider, apple, ginger, spices and bitters. There’s a chesterfield couch here with your name on it, waiting to be sunk into with the aforementioned cocktail in hand and imaginary cigar in the other. 308-322 Queen Street, Brisbane Jungle: Kope Lani Sometimes you have to branch away from the espresso martini and Jungle Bar has the perfect answer. Havana Club, Kahlua, cold-press coffee and sugar is heated, layered with coconut cream and dusted with nutmeg. Chuck on the lei, but leave the grass skirt at home – tiki has never been so soul-warming, 76 Vulture Street, West End
UPDATE, July 26, 2020: Charlie's Angels is available to stream via Amazon Prime Video, Foxtel Now, Google Play, YouTube and iTunes. The first line of Charlie's Angels circa 2019, uttered by a glammed-up Kristen Stewart, makes a statement. "I think women can do anything," Stewart's Sabina Wilson tells Australian Jonny (Chris Pang), responding to his smug assertions otherwise. Naturally, Sabina is swiftly forced to prove her point. The film she's in conveys this notion across its duration, too, although not always in the way that it intends. Written and directed by Elizabeth Banks (as well as co-starring the actor-turned-filmmaker), the third iteration of Charlie's Angels embraces the idea that women can do whatever they please — and, more importantly, that women needn't fit any mould. And yet, by emphasising these messages in a movie that's largely generic, there's an emptiness behind the film's empowering words. Sabina's altercation with Jonny is just the action-packed picture's opening punch. A year later, when computer programmer Elena Houghlin (Naomi Scott) seeks the Angels' help, the movie kicks its main narrative into gear. Meeting with Bosley (Djimon Hounsou), Elena explains that she's been working on a revolutionary clean-energy project, but it can be weaponised — and, just as it's about to hit the shelves, her boss (Nat Faxon) is hiding that fact from his boss (Sam Claflin). When, mid-conversation, a tattooed henchman (Jonathan Tucker) starts shooting Elena and Bosley's way, the main Angels swoop in. Soon, Sabina and no-nonsense ex-MI6 agent Jane Kano (Ella Balinska) are protecting Elena, trying to save the world and showing their new friend the wig-wearing, outfit-changing, globe-trotting, go-get-'em-girl spy ropes. Four decades since the initial Charlie's Angels hit the small screen, and nearly 20 years after the first two films brought the concept to cinemas, this feisty espionage franchise sports a few superficial changes. Like Men In Black (albeit far more convincingly), the Angels have gone international in this reboot-slash-revival (it introduces a new team, but exists in the same world as its predecessors). Plus, Bosley is now a rank rather than a specific person. So, Patrick Stewart also plays a Bosley. He's the retiring senior figure, as well as the man who spread the organisation's wings. Banks is a Bosley too, with her character overseeing Sabina, Jane and Elena's mission, singing day drinking's praises and stressing that there's nothing wrong with needing a hug in a time of crisis. That sentiment from Banks also makes a statement — one that's as crucial as KStew's opening words. Charlie's Angels is guilty of including a few easy female stereotypes (a love of cheese and a fondness for big wardrobes, for example); however it also highlights that being formidable and being vulnerable aren't polar opposites. From Farrah Fawcett, Jaclyn Smith and Kate Jackson to Drew Barrymore, Lucy Liu and Cameron Diaz, viewers have already seen previous Angels demonstrate different strengths and play dress-up as different kinds of women. Here, they let their multi-faceted personalities shine. Each of the new Angels does this in their own way, and it's a meaningful touch. It's also something that isn't always part of the 'strong female lead' package, with Hollywood frequently struggling to realise that proficient and powerful women aren't one-dimensional. With that in mind, Stewart, Balinska and Scott make a lively crew. While Stewart provides the off-screen star power, the three actors share the on-screen spotlight. Indeed, although Stewart is set up to steal scenes as the goofiest member of the group — playing against her usual type of late (see: Clouds of Sils Maria, Certain Women and Personal Shopper) — her co-stars make as much of a splash. Balinska cracks Jane's stern exterior, but never lets either her tough or open sides seem like a flaw. Scott, already a standout in this year's live-action Aladdin remake, plays the awkward but capable newcomer with charm. Banks often saddles the three leads with stating the obvious and relaying exposition, but they're a trio that audiences won't mind spending time with. And, in resurrecting a decades-old property, that's really the movie's main point. It's an incredibly timely moment to be back in the Charlie's Angels game, as Banks clearly recognises, but her task isn't simple. Sitting in the director's chair for the second time (after Pitch Perfect 2), she's charged with updating the series in-line with today's #MeToo mindset, and also reviving a potential cash cow. Filmmaking is a business, so the second part of the equation was always going to weigh heavier than the first for Sony. Cue action scenes that, though energetic and well-executed, rarely leave an imprint — especially given that nicely choreographed espionage antics are oh-so-common cinema fodder these days. Cue an overall mood that's perky, dips into thoughtful territory, yet still has a noticeable cookie-cutter vibe. And, of course, cue an engaging-enough but inescapably standard movie that's primarily here to whet appetites for more sassy girl-power antics to come. Yep, amidst the many things that women can do, they can star in passable franchise scene-setters as well. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yKeRgPPQcoc
A year goes slowly when you're waiting for one weekend but, at last, Harvest Rock season is almost upon us. We're all in full prep mode for the 2023 iteration of the huge South Australia music festival, and it's looking like it might be one of the biggest yet. The good news doesn't stop coming, after the absolute banger lineup dropped our attendance was all but guaranteed. Luckily, we have an exclusive deal over on Concrete Playground Trips that wraps up a brilliant VIP package under one ribbon of convenience. That package includes nearby accommodation, VIP entry to the festival and loads of goodies (from exclusive dining options to an Archie Rose gift pack) to complete your experience. In case you're not across the deets of this year's festival, it's taking place on the weekend of October 28–29 in Adelaide and offers a real superstar lineup that includes exclusive Australian performances from Jamiroquai and Beck. This is a show curated by Secret Sounds, after all, the maestros behind Splendour in the Grass and Falls Festival. It's not all music though, the festival splits the spotlight onto food too. Everything from fine dining curated by leading APAC chefs to food trucks and live mixology sessions with culinary geniuses from around Australia, like wine expert and personality Nick Stock and Sydney distillery Archie Rose, will be on offer. This year the festival also features The Grape Escape, a dedicated wellness centre designed to help you unwind from the hectic activities outside. Expect hot drinks, tarot readings, massages and more to help you enjoy some well-deserved time to yourself. Harvest Rock will take over Rymill Park/Murlawirrapurka and King Rodney Park/Ityamai-itpina, Adelaide, on Saturday, October 28 and Sunday, October 29. Tickets are on sale now. To secure yours and find more info, visit the website, or visit Concrete Playground Trips to book our exclusive VIP package.
Real life has enough drama, as we all well and truly know at the moment. When it comes to getting cosy on your couch, you can be forgiven for wanting to forget the world's troubles — and your own, and this year's — and get caught up in a side-splitting comedy instead. Our tip: pick a top-notch TV series of the rib-tickling kind and stream (or re-stream) your way through it. Some you can knock out fairly quickly, filling your weekend with laughter. Others will take weeks and months, and will constantly brighten up your days in the process. From acerbic delights and absurd wonders to heartwarming gems and instant classics, streaming platform Binge isn't lacking in the comedy department. Because being able to lose yourself in a hilarious TV series is one of life's simple but much-needed pleasures, we've teamed up with the Australian service to highlight five shows that are guaranteed to have you giggling and guffawing — including via a 14-day free trial for new customers.
You'll be able to go further into brain-imploding Water Temples, delve into more shitty dungeons and ride Epona across more of the Sacred Realm gathering rupees; the brand new Legend of Zelda game is going to go open world. Finally (finally) taking cues from long-celebrated megamap games like Oblivion and Fallout 3, Nintendo looked back to Zelda's history to develop their eighteenth official adventure — and online opinions are predictably flying. Series producer Eiji Aonuma announced the new Wii U Legend of Zelda game during the Nintendo Digital Presentation at the annual E3 annual video game conference overnight in LA. Nintendo needed a big ol' eel slap of a new game announcement last night, leaning on Mario Kart 8 to kickstart struggling Wii U sales. Looking back to older Zelda games, the developers decided it was high time for Link to explore bigger maps again (many, many years after Oblivion, Skyrim and even Fallout 3 had delivered gamechanging —heh — open world formats). Expanding the best bits of the old school 2D Link to the Past, everyone's favourite Ocarina of Time and GameCube's 2002 Wind Waker, Nintendo are finally cottoning on to the joys of open world in RPGs. To be fair, the new game looks badass. If I had an Ocarina in my possession, I'd be throwing down notes on Epona's Song and hitching a ride there immediately. The new Legend of Zelda is expected in 2015. https://youtube.com/watch?v=mM9MGY2OL8o Via Kotaku.
There's never been a better time to head out on a road trip and explore everything Australia has to offer. Lockdowns are ending, borders are reopening, live music is taking over regional NSW, and country towns need visitors more than ever after a year void of tourism and the fallout from the devastating 2019/20 bushfires. If you are heading out on the road you may want to bring your pet, after all, what good is a holiday if your four-legged best friend can't come with you. It's also completely fair to have some nervousness about travelling with your pets. Nobody wants to deal with a car-sick pup, or get to their lavish coastal accommodation to find it's not pet-friendly. We talked to veterinarian and Snooza Pet Products ambassador Dr Katrina Warren to ask all the questions you may have before you're joined by your favourite furry buddy on a week away to a pet-friendly stay. To help, we've also rounded up some of our favourite dog-friendly hotels around Australia. What's the best way to find pet-friendly accommodation? "These days, most booking websites have an option to search for pet-friendly accommodation, but just because a property says it accepts pets doesn't mean that it's well set up for pets. It is important to check individual house rules, such as whether the property is fenced and if pets are allowed inside." How often do dogs get car sick and what should I do if my dog does get car sick? "It is quite common for puppies and young dogs to get car sick, but they usually grow out of this. This is because the ear structures that are used for balance are not fully developed yet. Make sure you don't feed them before you start driving and stop frequently for breaks. Like us humans, it can help to have a window open to circulate fresh air and keep the car cool. Some adult dogs can still get car sick, which is when it's best to consult your vet about an effective plan, as there are some medications that can help." How often should we stop for water and toilet breaks for my pet? "I recommend stopping every couple of hours. Always make sure you have your dog on a leash when you bring them out of the car as dogs can panic in new environments and may run. Pack a portable dog bowl and clean water so you always have easy access to cool water." Is there a way I can test if my pet is well suited to travelling before we leave? "Most people have an idea of their pet's personality. A pet that does not enjoy car travel or gets anxious when they go to a new environment would probably be happier to stay home with someone caring for them. Crate training your puppy or adult dog can be extremely helpful, ensuring they are more comfortable when confined to their crate no matter where they are." Are pets likely to be stressed about sleeping in a new environment? How can I help comfort them if they are? "It really depends on the individual pet, but some pets may be anxious when away from their home base. I recommend packing your pet's own bedding so they have something familiar to sleep on. Some beds are easier to travel with than others — I love the Snooza Futon because it's warm in winter and cool in summer. The cover is removable and easy to wash and it doesn't take up a lot of space in the car. Anxious dogs may enjoy snuggling into the Snooza Calming Cuddler Bed." Should I get any specific vaccinations or tick/flea treatments before we leave? "You should make sure your pet's vaccination, worming and flea treatments are all up to date before you travel. If you are travelling to coastal areas of Victoria, NSW or Queensland you should also use a paralysis tick preventative. If you're unsure if there are paralysis ticks in the area you are visiting, I suggest calling ahead to the local vet in the area to ask." Any tips on how to keep pets happy and calm in the car? "While it may be tempting to cuddle your dog on your lap during a car trip, dogs should be restrained when travelling in the car. Keeping them secured behind a grill, in a crate, wearing a harness or dog seat belt are great ways to keep your pets safe, all of which are easiest to teach from when they are a puppy. Using a crate for small dogs and puppies helps keep them safe and comfortable. The Snooza Road Tripper is a handy way to keep your pets secured if they're travelling in the backseat, looking after your dog and your car interior in case they get dirty during walks throughout your trip."
"Darling it's better down where it's wetter" isn't just a line that The Little Mermaid fans have had stuck in their head for the last two decades. It's also the first thing likely to pop into the minds of anyone heading to one particular Norwegian restaurant. Now open in the coastal village of Båly in the country's south, Under plunges hungry patrons into watery surroundings, offering more than just the usual scenic vistas. At this eatery, diners tuck into their dishes underwater. As first announced in 2017, patrons feast on seafood under the sea. If you're going to open a space underneath the ocean, you have to serve up the fish, which is just what head chef Nicolai Ellitsgaard is doing. There's just one food option, with a seasonal set menu serving up 18 courses and taking around four hours to get through — with optional wine or juice pairings. Here, however, the surroundings are as much of a drawcard as the cuisine. Visitors descend down three colour-coded levels to sip sparkling tipples in a champagne bar that boasts views of the shoreline, then enjoy dinner in the completely submerged dining room. The latter sits five metres below the water's surface, and is surrounded by panoramic acrylic windows for quite the aquatic view. For those wondering about pressure and safety, metre-thick concrete walls will keep everyone nice and dry, in a structure designed by architecture firm Snøhetta. Describing the space as "a sunken periscope", the building was constructed not only to wow those stepping foot inside, but to fit in with its surroundings. The grey exterior colour scheme is designed to blend in with the rocky coastline, with coarse surfacing that encourages molluscs to cling on. Indeed, over time it's hoped that Under will become an artificial mussel reef. As well as offering quite the place to eat, the project also aims to champion biodiversity, functioning as a research centre for marine life. This includes informational plaques educating visitors about the area, helping to expand not only the list of places you've tucked into a meal, but your knowledge. Bookings are open — start planning your next Scandinavian trip now. Images: Snohetta.
Cities are brilliant. They facilitate things like coffee, sex and conversation. You can get a pizza at two in the morning, you can stumble into washed-up models at the pub, and you can ask your local drag queen where they got their fabulous dress while you stand in line for an ATM. But for all of that, our cities have problems, and increasingly we are realising that the spaces we live in have an unparalleled impact on human health and happiness. There are 7 billion people alive today. By the end of this century there will be 10 billion. And it's estimated that 80 percent of those people will live in cities. "We have to deal with a doubling of urban dwellers in the next forty years. How are we going to make life in these places sustainable?" This is the question asked by Danish filmmaker Andreas Dalsgaard, whose documentary The Human Scale made its Australian premiere at the Sydney Film Festival last week and will screen at Melbourne's ACMI in June and July. The Problem with Building Cities as Machines In centuries past, cities were built at human walking pace, with the street and the square the fundamental elements of urban life. Think Rome. But things changed radically in the 20th century. Under the influence of modernist architects like Le Corbusier, cities were reconceived as machines for living, with the central functions of work, home and play separated for maximum efficiency. The most important element was the car. Buildings were meant to be glimpsed momentarily as you sped past on the freeway. Think Los Angeles. This has led to perfume bottle cities like Dubai, every building built to impress. They are places that look fantastic from the perspective of a helicopter. But they look rubbish from eye-level. Moreover, they aren't good for people. The cities we are building right now are making people ill. We build out, fostering social isolation and financial hardship. And we build up, when taller buildings inhibit fresh air, exercise and meeting other people. They are, in short, bad for your health. "In the Western world, we created this way of life, and we're now learning that there are huge problems connected with it," says Dalsgaard. "A lot of Western cities look towards Copenhagen and ask 'Why is it that 37 percent of people bike, why is it that you have this wonderful public domain and public life, can we get some of that?' And at the same time we have countries like China, which are developing so fast and copying a way of life which isn't sustainable, both on a human level and environmentally. Then we have the third world, represented by Dhaka — 3 billion people worldwide knocking on the door, about to make the same mistakes." The Human Scale is asking us to consider the ways a human-centred approach to urban planning, design and architecture could address these issues. "There are so many things we struggle with in human society," says Dalsgaard. "We have obesity, we have diabetes, we have depression and anxiety, and a lot of these things are connected with how we live." How to Reclaim Cities for People The central figure of The Human Scale is Jan Gehl, a Danish architect and urban designer who has inspired something of an international movement in urban planning. In the 1960s, Gehl began mapping pedestrian behaviour in Copenhagen. What he saw was that if you make more public space, there will be more public life. The best example of Gehl's vision is Copenhagen. The streets are for people, not cars. Small bars and cafes proliferate, public life thrives, and bicycles and walkers control the pace of life. These measures are more sustainable, not only financially but also environmentally and psychologically. People are healthier, they interact with each other, and they feel a sense of ownership over their own city. "It is so cheap to be sweet to people in city planning," explains Gehl. Because one of the central points of The Human Scale is that the way we are developing now — more cars, more high rise buildings, more energy consumption — is more expensive and dangerous than we can perhaps conceive of. Gehl's approach instead recognises that we can't halt the pace of growth. We have to look at what we have and consider how we do more with less. The Human Scale shows how Gehl's ideas have been adapted successfully in New York and Melbourne. One of the loveliest moments of the documentary is a scene showing a spontaneous snowball fight which broke out in New York's Times Square after it had been pedestrianised according to Gehl's recommendations. It demonstrates a wildness and passion which can only emerge in a city if you have a critical mass of people reclaiming public space. But these changes clash with the short-term interests of industry. "It's a constant struggle," notes Dalsgaard, "and the only way you can struggle is through the public domain. Citizens need to raise their voices saying 'we want this', or 'we don't want this.' If you don't have people doing that, then the poor measure of profit that huge high-rise developments make, they will prevail. And it's not that I'm against profit, I just believe in smart profit and long-term profit. And we have to find ways to fight for that." Why does this matter in Australia? In 2007, The Lord Mayor of Sydney, Clover Moore, commissioned Jan Gehl to create a plan to put life back into Sydney. It aimed to create more public spaces; to encourage small businesses, bars and cafes; to create a vibrant night-time economy; and to introduce cycleways and pedestrianise areas of the CBD, as had been done in Melbourne decades before. "Melbourne understood this thirty years ago," says Dalsgaard. "And that has meant that Melbourne today is a very attractive city, which has out-competed Sydney in many ways." Some of Gehl's proposals have worked in Sydney — it's seen an explosion in small bars due to reformed licensing laws, and events like Vivid encourage people into the streets. But peak industry groups sit at odds with public interest. We see this in the development of Central Park at Broadway, with the looming high-rises gradually blocking out the sunlight. And we see it in the proposed development of Barangaroo, where prime waterfront land which could be used as public space is likely to become Sydney's second casino. When asked about this conflict, Dalsgaard points to the success of Copenhagen's Meatpacking District, a former industrial section of the city (much like Barangaroo), which could have generated a vast amount of money for the government. But instead of selling off the district to developers, Copenhagen decided to keep the Meatpacking District as a place with low rents to encourage creative communities. This has transformed the Meatpacking Distract into the most exciting and innovative part of Copenhagen. "The thing about industry," notes Dalsgaard, "is that it's profit driven, but we have very poor measurements when it comes to long-term profit. It's a huge short-term cost for Copenhagen to decide to do that. But because there's this creative hub, people all over the world now are talking about the Meatpacking District. How do you measure that value?" What The Human Scale demonstrates is that it's dangerous to build just because you can. It shows that governments, industry bodies and architects the world over need to stop creating cities like a self-important child sat at a table with a Lego set, looking down from above. What matters is making cities good for people, making sure they are places that keep us healthy and happy, and which we want to wander, rest and linger in. The Human Scale is screening at ACMI from June 14 to July 4. The Sydney Film Festival continues until June 16.
Autumn might be in full swing across Australia — whatever autumn looks like in your part of the country — but an endless summer now awaits. Fancy spending a year flying around the country, and the world, to various beach spots? Win Jetstar's latest giveaway and that's on your agenda. The Aussie airline is handing out a golden ticket — and, because it isn't Willy Wonka, there's no free chocolate involved. Instead, the carrier is gifting the lucky recipient a year's worth of free flights, although there is a limit to how much you can get soaring over a 12-month period. One person will receive up to $24,000 in Jetstar flights, which'll come in the form of 12 return flights to any beach within Australia, plus six international return flights — both for two people. So, if you win, your other half / bestie / sibling is going to want to start making holiday plans, too. Before you can go in the running for the contest, which is only open to over 18s, you need to start how Jetstar wants you to continue: by hitting up a local beach. Until Thursday, March 16, the airline is asking for your snaps — but where you'll need to head, when and what you'll need to do for your picture varies. On Saturday, March 11 in Melbourne, for instance, you'll need to head to Catani Gardens Beach in St Kilda between 10am–12pm. On Sunday, March 12 in Sydney, the same applies at Bondi Surf Bathers Life Saving Club from 10am–12pm, too. At both spots, folks will find a pair of 14-karat gold trunks. And yes, that's what you'll need to take a photo of — a selfie, in fact — then upload it to Instagram Stories while tagging @JetstarAustralia #TheGoldenTicketTogs. Those shimmering swimmers won't be heading elsewhere, but residents of Canberra will still want to hit up Lake Burley Griffin from 9am–5pm on Monday, March 13 — and Adelaide inhabitants should make their way to Adelaide Oval from 9am–5pm on Tuesday, March 14. In Perth, you're going to City Beach from 9am–5pm on Wednesday, March 15. And southeast Queenslanders, including Brisbanites, have a date with the Pelican Beach boat ramp on the Gold Coast in their future from 9am–5pm on Thursday, March 16. Visit those togs-free spots in the ACT, SA, WA and Queensland, and you'll be looking for Golden Ticket Togs posters and billboards. Again, you'll need to take a pic, then upload to Instagram Stories while tagging @JetstarAustralia #TheGoldenTicketTogs. Jetstar advises that the most creative golden snap will win, so interpret that however you like. It'll then pick one per state/territory, and open up the ultimate winner to a public vote. View this post on Instagram A post shared by Jetstar Australia (@jetstaraustralia) Jetstar's Golden Ticket Togs promotion runs on different dates in different states, closing with its Queensland leg on Thursday, March 16. Head to Jetstar's Instagram for further details, and the airline's website for terms and conditions. Feeling inspired to book a getaway? You can now book your next dream holiday through Concrete Playground Trips with deals on flights, stays and experiences at destinations all around the world.
The days are long and drenched with sunlight, and you've got time on your hands to lie on the sand or in the grass and while it away with a book into the late summer hours. But you want the hours to be worthwhile, and sometimes it's really difficult to make a decision or to know where to start. Moreover, you want something enjoyable and easy to read that isn't going to turn your brain to marshmallow. So to help you out, Concrete Playground has come up with some suggestions for the best books to read over your summer. We've got new stuff and old stuff. Books you've never heard of and books everybody's heard of. Romances, mysteries, high quality smut, and stories both sweet and weird and wonderful. Compiled lovingly by somebody who's found the first legitimate use for her English major, we hope that these books delight you and make summer all the more wonderful. 1. 1Q84 by Haruki MurakamiJapanese author Haruki Murakami has a cult following and a legion of literary groupies so devoted that when the English translation of 1Q84 was published in October, bookstores stayed open late to cope with a demand not seen since the world was hit by the latest escapades of a certain Harry Potter. And upon publication, the word 'genius' was merrily tossed around by a legion of doe-eyed bookish types, as well as mutterings about Nobel Prizes. Quite deservedly too. 1Q84 is set in Tokyo in a fictionalised 1984 and follows the parallel story-lines of Tengo, a solitary maths teacher and ghost writer, and Aomame, a lady who works a sideline in ridding the world of abusive men. Over the course of a year their lives intertwine around religious cults, eccentric geniuses, reclusive dowagers and unexplained coincidences and mysteries. At roughly nine hundred pages long it isn't the slimmest book to carry around, but 1Q84, and everything by Murakami in general, is unlike anything else out there. It's beautiful and it's complex and you get completely lost inside the labyrinthine worlds he creates. 1Q84 on Amazon 2. A Visit From The Goon Squad – Jennifer EganA Visit From The Goon Squad is a series of thirteen interlocking stories centered around aging music executive and a once-talented musician, Bennie Salazar. The book opens with Salazar's former assistant, Sasha, a kleptomaniac trying desperately not to steal her date's wallet, and shuttles back and forth in time to the 1970s San Francisco punk scene, a tortuous African safari and a New York of the not too distant future. A Visit From The Goon Squad won the Pulitzer Prize this year, and it's insanely fun to read, moving so quickly you can easily eat up a day reading it. All the stories centre around the music industry and rock and roll, but ultimately it's more about what it means to grow up and how that often translates into a loss of innocence. According to Google, trusted research tool, HBO is turning the book into a television series next year, but I can pretty much guarantee the book will be better, because at the end of the day it's going to be hard to translate a chapter formatted like a Powerpoint presentation, amongst others, into entertaining television. A Visit from the Goon Squad on Amazon 3. The White Album – Joan DidionIn the sixties Joan Didion was a journalist and writer who described herself as anxious, confused, rotten at interviewing people and only ever got decent stories out of people because she was so tiny and neurotically inarticulate in front of others that she tended to blend into the background. And as somebody who's anxious and neurotically inarticulate myself, Joan Didion has endeared herself to me ever since this book occupied me for the entire abominable flight between Sydney and London without me ever having to resort to watching a Judd Apatow movie. The White Album is a collection of essays put together at the end of the seventies which, very broadly, cover the disintegration of the sixties and everything the sixties had hoped to achieve. If I was a proper literary critic I would say it wove together fragmented narratives of sixties cultural phenomena, like the Black Panthers and the Manson Family, with the author's own personal experiences and problems, lending the work a compelling quality of tenderness and loss which seems to express something integral to the contemporary human condition. But I'm not going to say that, cause that would ruin it, right? Seriously though, read this book. It is excellent. The White Album on Amazon 4. The Raw Shark Texts – Steven HallThe Raw Shark Texts is what I imagine would be produced if Michel Gondry and David Lynch got together one night, got plastered and decided they quite fancied writing a thriller. The Raw Shark Texts is Steven Hall's debut novel, published in 2007. The story opens with the narrator waking up in a room and having absolutely no idea who he is. Gradually he learns that he is the Second Eric Sanderson, the first having been destroyed by virtue of being the prime target of vicious conceptual creatures who linger in thought and text. After the death of his girlfriend several years earlier, Eric, working with the Un-Space committee, tried to preserve his memories of her inside a conceptual creature, which unintentionally lead to the release of a Ludovician, the most dangerous of conceptual fish, which feeds on human memories and the sense of self. The novel follows the journey of the Second Eric Sanderson as he tries to track down the people who'll explain and help him eventually defeat the Ludovician. It sounds complex, but like anything by the likes of Michel Gondry or David Lynch, it's surprisingly lucid and massively engrossing, and makes for one of the most compelling books you could read about language, memory and the devastating power of love. The Raw Shark Texts on Amazon 5. On The Road – Jack KerouacFamously typed in three weeks on a continuous 120-foot roll of teletype paper, On The Road is the hallmark work of the beat generation, and the work that inspired generations of young people to take off, get out of the city and find themselves. The novel centers around jazz, drugs and poetry and follows the adventures of narrator Sal and the iconic maverick Dean Moriarty, based in real life on Neal Cassady, as they hitchhike across America. Bob Dylan once described On The Road as having changed his life, and it taught a whole generation of people the world over that revelation is to be found in the streets, in the destitute, in the bums and the dark places. Incidentally, On The Road is being turned into a movie, probably to be released in the coming year, featuring Sam Riley and Kristen Stewart. Make of that what you will. Either way, On The Road is iconic, and it's here because if you haven't read it, you probably should, particularly during the summer when it feels as though you could pack up any minute and re-claim your freedom. Plus it's published in the Popular Penguins series, so it'll save you monies and earn you a modicum of hipster cred when you read it on the bus. On the Road on Amazon 6. The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao – Junot Diaz The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao reads like Childish Gambino and David Foster Wallace got together to narrate the life of a second-generation Dominican high school geek who's mastered writing in Elvish, knows more about the Marvel universe than Stan Lee and couldn't pass for normal even if he tried. Oscar is a fat, Tolkien-loving kid with a bad case of self-hatred, and makes the mistake of using words like 'indefatigable' too many times, scaring off the ladies and inviting blows to the head. The book is narrated in turns by Lola, Oscar's tough-talking punk sister, and Yunior, his one-time room mate. The language is one of the best things about the book, an easy to follow Spanglish giving the words body-language, or 'swag'. Weaving in Dominican history, family tragedy and and curses passed down through the generations, The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao essentially proves that if you want to know what it feels like to be an X-Man, you just need to be a smart, bookish, ethnically marginalised kid living in a contemporary U.S. ghetto. The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao on Amazon 7. Ask The Dust – John FanteAsk The Dust almost missed becoming a classic, and if it weren't for Charles Bukowski hailing him as a genius the book might not have been in print today. But it is, making Bukowski a blessed legend (more on that below). Arturo Bandini is twenty. He's moved alone to Los Angeles in the '30s to try and be a writer. But he's failing at the writing, he's hungry as hell and he's a miserable virgin tortured by beautiful women and the Californian sun. Moreover, he's obsessed with a Mexican waitress wearing broken shoes who he can't stop treating like shit. I read Ask The Dust two summers ago, and spent a whole day at Maroubra beach obsessively quoting dog-eared passages of it to my long-suffering and ever indulgent friend. In that instance, I'm pretty sure my fierce enthusiasm scared her off, so I'll try and tone down just how awesome I believe this book to be, but I encourage you to imagine me shaking you furiously by the lapels if you decide not to read it. Ask the Dust on Amazon 8. You'll Be Sorry When I'm Dead – Marieke HardyMarieke Hardy is wildly entertaining, even though I know she can occasionally rub people the wrong way (although, given that Google suggests 'Marieke Hardy + breasts' as one of the most popular search options you've got to think more than a couple of people are keen). The former Triple J Breakfast host and writer of ABC TV series Laid is opinionated, acerbic and sometimes a little controversial. You'll Be Sorry When I'm Dead is her first book, a collection of personal essays which are hilarious but also heart wrenching in their honesty and attention to detail. She details her penchant for drinking to excess, childhood ambitions of growing up to be a prostitute, how football broke her heart, and having her first kiss with a Young Talent Time 'idol'. Grandiose, passionate and often hilarious, this series of mini-memoirs is engrossing and oddly relatable, particularly when you finish an unflinching story about an ex-boyfriend or Bob Ellis and then get to read their frank opinion about what she had to say. You'll Be Sorry When I'm Dead on Allen & Unwin 9. Women – Charles BukowskiBukowski is the poet laureate of seedy bars, gamblers, drunks, womanisers and dirty old men. He was a man who had no time for adjectives, who was bored with most literature because it had no guts or dance or moxy and believed the writer had no responsibility "except to jack off in bed alone and to type a good page." If that quote puts you off, read something else, but remember there's a reason why Bukowski is beloved by so many. All of Bukowski's novels (barring one) follow the trials and tribulations of his fictional alter-ego Henry Chinaski. Ugly, misanthropic and an appalling drunk, Bukowski wrote like a madman for decades, but didn't start getting much recognition until the 1970s. Women is Bukowski at his drunken, raw essence, written in his fifties, when he was making up for lost time with all the women who wouldn't notice him when he was young and poor and hideous. Women on Amazon 10. Middlesex – Jeffrey EugenidesSo Jeffrey Eugenides has a new book out at the moment, The Marriage Plot. But I've read it, and, um...Middlesex is better. Moreover, Middlesex won the Pulitzer Prize in 2003. Middlesex could in many ways be construed as your average inter-generational family drama with a hint of multiculturalism thrown into the mix. But it's much more than that. Middlesex is the history of a single gene through a century of tumultuous history, lyrical and strange and incredibly hard to put down. The narrator was born twice, first as a girl and then again as a teenager on an operating table, emerging as a young man, an eventuality which can be attributed to the revelation that his grandparents were actually brother and sister who escaped the stigma they would have received in Greece by immigrating to Detroit in the U.S. There's history and political drama, heartbreaking stories of first love and medical incompetence. But it's not a tragedy - it's heartfelt and terribly funny. Middlesex on Amazon
There you are just standing around minding your own business, going about your day as usual, when you see a tyrannosaurus rex towering over you. Given that the Jurassic Park and Jurassic World franchise doesn't depict reality, that's the kind of incident that requires either fossils or a bit of creative magic to make happen in the year 2023. Dinos Alive: An Immersive Experience opts for the latter, thanks to animatronic dinosaur replicas that are life-sized, and also move — as Australians can see for themselves when the exhibition heads Down Under from September. Welcome to... your next date with prehistoric creatures after watching Prehistoric Planet, hitting up Brisbane's Dinosaurs of Patagonia museum showcase, exploring the Lego Jurassic World exhibition a few years back and soaking in every other excuse to scope out the earth's always-fascinating ancient inhabitants. This one will debut locally in Melbourne, kicking off on Friday, September 29. It makes its way to our shores with help from entertainment platform Fever, which is also currently touring a Banksy showcase. At Dinos Alive, you'll peer up at not only a T-rex, but also stegosaurus, ankylosaurus, gorgosaurus, velociraptors and other critters that roamed the planet all those millions of years back. (No, everyone's dad's favourite, aka doyouthinkhesaurus, won't be there.) The exhibition's creatures are designed to look as realistic as possible, with more than 80 specimens covered. Because this is an all-ages affair — kids love dinosaurs, and adults never grow out of loving dinosaurs — there'll also be an educational side if you're keen to up your dino knowledge. As the latest season of the David Attenborough-hosted Prehistoric Planet devoted some time to, the Triassic, Jurassic and Cretaceous eras weren't just about giants on land. Accordingly, Dinos Alive will also feature a virtual aquarium to showcase the creatures that dwelled under the sea. Virtual reality will also help make parts of the exhibition as lifelike as possible, as part of an experience that'll take attendees between 60–75 minutes to wander through. While Melbourne is Dinos Alive's first Australian stop after proving a hit in the US, there's also a waitlist for a yet-to-be-announced Sydney season. Fingers crossed that these dinosaurs will also rampage elsewhere around the rest of country once they've brought their giant footprints to the Victorian and New South Wales capitals. Dinos Alive: An Immersive Experience will open at Fever Exhibition Hall, 62 Dawson Street, Brunswick, Melbourne from Friday, September 29, 2023, with tickets available now. You can also join the waitlist for the yet-to-be-announced Sydney season. We'll update you with future dates and cities when they're announced.
The National Gallery of Victoria's blockbuster Triennial 2020 exhibition is still in full swing, but, already, the gallery has announced the next fresh dose of artistic goodness heading our way. Today, Monday, March 1, it revealed a jam-packed lineup of exhibitions and programs for 2021. Among them, the international exclusive French Impressionism, featuring more than 100 French impressionist masterpieces on loan from Boston's renowned Museum of Fine Arts. Yep, overseas trips might still be on hold, but come June 2021, you'll be able to catch iconic works from the likes of Claude Monet, Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Edgar Degas, Mary Cassatt and more, when they hit the NGV for this huge showcase, as part of the Melbourne Winter Masterpieces exhibition series. French Impressionism is set to feature 79 works never before shown in Australia, and will wrap up with a groundbreaking presentation of 16 Monet pieces displayed on curved walls — a nod to the oval gallery at Musée de l'Orangerie in Paris that the artist helped design for his famed Water Lilies paintings. [caption id="attachment_801662" align="alignnone" width="1920"] Camille Henrot, The Pale Fox (2014) installation view. Copyright courtesy of the artist and kamel mennour, Paris/London; König Galerie, Berlin; Metro Pictures, New York. Photographer: Anders Sune Berg.[/caption] Turning the lens closer to home, large-scale exhibition She-Oak and Sunlight: Australian Impressionism will feature a huge 270 artworks plucked from major public and private collections across the country. It aims to explore Australia's own position within the impressionist movement, showcasing both recognised and lesser-known works from names like Tom Roberts, Frederick McCubbin, Jane Sutherland, Jane Price, Clara Southern and John Russell. Elsewhere in the program, catch an Aussie-first survey of works by celebrated French-born, New York-based contemporary artist Camille Henrot, showcasing a diverse spread of media created across the last decade. NGV Collection exhibition Big Weather shares a new appreciation for our weather systems, as told through Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander art, while Bark Ladies features two decades of stunning works on bark by masterful Yolngu women artists from Northeast Arnhem Land. And in groundbreaking show Queer, more than 300 works displayed across five different gallery spaces will mark the most historically expansive thematic presentation of artworks relating to queer stories ever shown in an Australian gallery. For more details about the just-announced NGV 2021 Season, jump over to the website. Image one: Claude Monet, Water Lilies (1905). Courtesy of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. Gift of Edward Jackson Holmes. Photography copyright Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. Image two: Alfred Sisley, Waterworks at Marly (1876). Courtesy of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. Gift of Miss Olive Simes Photography copyright Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. Image three: Tom Roberts, Shearing the rams (1890). Courtesy of National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne. Felton Bequest, 1932.
A massive Gandhi exhibition is on its way to Melbourne's Immigration Museum. Curated from more than 1000 photos, over two hours of footage, an hour's worth of film clips and 20 audio recordings, the show focuses on Gandhi's role in leading India to independence, as well as his travels in England and South Africa. At the same time, it's a celebration of Indian diaspora all over the world. One of the reasons the exhibition is heading for Victoria is that the state is home to more people of Indian descent than any other place in Australia. "Mahatma Gandhi was an inspirational leader and I'm thrilled that Victorians will be able to enjoy this incredible exhibition," said Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews, who's in India this week checking out the show. It's been at Pravasi Bharatiya Kendra in Delhi since October 2016. "Victoria is home to Australia's largest Indian population and this exhibition is an important way to acknowledge their cultural heritage and build the cultural understanding of India among the wider Victorian community." You'll have until July to head along. The show is just one of many upcoming events celebrating Victoria's Indian connections, following the release of Victoria's India Strategy: Our Shared Future. The Mahatma Gandhi Exhibition will be at Melbourne's Immigration Museum from April to July, 2018.
For some, getting behind a microphone to sing in public is their idea of hell. For Lost Souls, it's the whole reason that the new Fortitude Valley watering hole exists, complete with an underworld theme. The decor isn't a comment on karaoke's detractors, though. Rather, it's a continuation of this Brunswick Street venue's sibling bar next door. When you've already given Brisbane a retro arcade bar called Netherworld that's playfully decked out with murals to match its love of monsters and all things hellish, leaning in when expanding comes with the territory. January 2024 marked seven years since Netherworld first welcomed in patrons, taking over the pub on the corner of St Paul's Terrace corner that was formerly The Shamrock, The Step Inn and the Underdog. Lost Souls opened in mid-December 2023, launching just before that anniversary and nestling into a different area in the same building. So, you can now mash buttons over a brew, then belt out a banger over a few more — as long as you head by from Tuesday–Sunday. Five karaoke rooms await, all with the requisite look — aka creature-filled murals — but also an upbeat feel. Accordingly, while skulls and tentacled critters don the walls, including around the screens displaying the all-important words to all the tracks that punters can sing, so do bright hues. Expect pink and purple paint, plus lighting to match, whether you're crooning 'Love Shack', 'Baby Shark', 'Yellow', 'Creep' or Mariah Carey's Christmas ditties. Brisbane's own Nelson Gibbins is responsible for the art and design, carrying over his collaborations with the Lost Souls team from Netherworld. Each of the quintet of spaces adorned with his work has its own look, spanning from the pastel nightmares of the 'Cute as Hell' room to the psychedelia of 'King Cane Toad', both of which can seat eight people. Shipwrecks and ravenous crustaceans are part of the 16-seater 'Beyond the Abyss' suite, while tombstones and skeletons feature in the also 16-person 'Boneyard Ballads' space. For groups of 20, 'The Ritual' — which takes its aesthetic from an occult ceremony gone awry in a 1940s Brisbane mansion — awaits. Bookings are available for an hour — and for those in need of liquid courage, the bar serves craft brews, cocktails, wine and spirits. Non-alcoholic options are also on the menu. For a bite to eat, you'll need to head to Netherworld either before or after your time behind the mic, where the Hellmouth Diner's fully vegan spread — with carnivorous ingredients only available as extras — features karaage tofu, garlic bread subs made with vegan meatballs, peanut butter oreo pies and more.
When it was announced back in 2016 that Moulin Rouge! was being turned into a stage musical, fans around the world thought the same thing in unison: the show must go on. Since then, the lavish production premiered in the US in 2018, then hit Broadway in 2019, and also announced that it'd head Down Under in 2021 — and if you're an Aussie wondering when the latter would actually happen after all the chaos of the past two years, the same mantra thankfully applies to its upcoming Melbourne season. Originally set to debut in August — a date that was obviously delayed due to lockdown — Moulin Rouge! The Musical will now make its Australian debut at Melbourne's revamped Regent Theatre on Friday, November 12. It'll do so as a newly minted Tony-winner, too, after picking up ten awards earlier in October, and also becoming the first-ever Aussie-produced show to win the Tony for Best Musical. Based on Baz Luhrmann's award-winning, Nicole Kidman and Ewan McGregor-starring movie — which celebrates its 20th anniversary this year — the stage musical brings to life the famed Belle Époque tale of young composer Christian and his heady romance with Satine, actress and star of the legendary Moulin Rouge cabaret. Set in the Montmartre Quarter of Paris, the film is known for its soundtrack, celebrating iconic tunes from across the past five decades. The stage version carries on the legacy, backing those favourites with even more hit songs that have been released in the two decades since the movie premiered. The musical is heading to Melbourne in the hands of production company Global Creatures, along with the Victorian Government. The Government is also a big player behind the Regent's upgrade works, having dropped a cool $14.5 million towards the $19.4 million project. It co-owns the site, along with the City of Melbourne. Moulin Rouge! The Musical's spectacular spectacular Melbourne season is set to stick around for a while, with tickets currently on sale until April 29. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ihH1VttqMzc&feature=emb_logo Updated October 26, 2021. Moulin Rouge! The Musical image: Matthew Murphy.
With its "funny Broadchurch" premise, Deadloch gave murder-mysteries The Kates treatment. In its first season, the Australian hit served up both crime drama and comedy, as well as a whip-smart subversion of the usual tales about detectives investigating a spate of killings, in one of the best new TV shows of 2023. No one familiar with Kate McCartney and Kate McLennan's past work could've expected anything different — and the pair delivered, so much so that a second season is on its way. Those prior shows? Before the pair got satirical with whodunnits — while also making a stellar whoddunit — McCartney and McLennan gave television cooking programs a spin, then morning TV. The Katering Show and Get Krack!n were the end results, and both remain as hilarious now as they each did when they debuted, as you can now see on The Kates' YouTube channel. Viewers have been able to enjoy The Katering Show online for years, but season one of Get Krack!n has just joined it. If you're still trying to fill the Deadloch-shaped hole in your viewing until more episodes arrive, this is the solution — whether or not you've already seen the hit series, which spoofs breakfast television in sharp and side-splitting fashion. While they didn't appear on-screen in Deadloch, McCartney and McLennan are front and centre in Get Krack!n as the titular show's hosts. For company, everyone from Sam Neill (Apples Never Fall), Hannah Gadsby (Sex Education), Miranda Tapsell (The Artful Dodger), Deborah Mailman (Last Days of the Space Age) and Aunty Donna (Aunty Donna's Coffee Cafe) to Adam Briggs (Boy Swallows Universe), Celia Pacquola (Utopia), Nakkiah Lui (Preppers), Charlotte Nicdao (Mythic Quest) and Michelle Lim-Davidson (The Newsreader) pop up. "We can't wait to bring our topical, satirical satire Get Krack!n to the world. We think it will be just as relevant to audiences now as it was the day it was filmed ... seven years ago," said The Kates. The Northern Territory-set second season of Deadloch is shooting now, with Kate Box (Boy Swallows Universe), Madeleine Sami (Our Flag Means Death), Nina Oyama (Utopia) and Alicia Gardiner (The Clearing) all returning from season one. New to the series this time around: Luke Hemsworth (Next Goal Wins), Steve Bisley (Human Error), Shari Sebbens (The Moogai) and plenty more. Check out the first season-one episode of Get Krack!n below — and the entire season via The Kates' YouTube channel: Get Krack!n is available to stream via The Kates' YouTube channel.
With Coopers on tap, RSL alcohol prices, some of the nation’s best talent passing through and a deck with views of the CBD, the Brisbane Jazz Club is not one to be overlooked. For something a little different, stop by for a gig, a jig and some river views. They do dinner and nibbles too, and it’s only a free CityHopper ride from the city.
Dig out those once-a-year novelty gumboots, Groovin the Moo has unveiled its 2019 lineup. Taking the large-scale music festival out of the city and into regional centres for another year, GTM will kick things off on Friday, April 26 in South Australia and travel through Maitland, Canberra, Bendigo and Townsville before finishing up in Bunbury on Saturday, May 11. This year sees local talent new and established taking the stage, with the lineup spanning up-and-comers like Jack River, G Flip and Haiku Hands right through to recent Hottest 100 top tenner Billie Eilish, Aussie favourites Nick Murphy and Thelma Plum, Australian hip hop legends Hilltop Hoods and rockers Regurgitator. International talent like Coolio — who'll you'll most likely recognise from his hit track 'Gangsta's Paradise' — Danish pop singer MØ and American rapper A$AP Twelvyy will make their way to the Moo, too. After hosting Australia's first ever pill testing trial in Canberra last year, Groovin the Moo is moving its ACT festival to Exhibition Park for the first time. Pill testing is still a much-debated topic around the country with five people recently dying from suspected overdoses in as many months. Here's the full lineup. GROOVIN THE MOO 2019 LINEUP A$AP Twelvyy (USA) Angie McMahon Aurora (Nor) Billie Eilish Carmouflage Rose Coolio (USA) Crooked Colours DMA's Duckwrth Fisher Flosstradamus (USA) G Flip Haiku Hands Hermitude Hilltop Hoods Holy Holy Jack River Just a Gent MØ (Dnk) Nick Murphy Nicole Millar Regurgitator Rejjie Snow (Irl) Sofi Tukker Spinderella Thelma Plum TOKiMONSTA (USA) Trophy Eyes GROOVIN THE MOO 2019 DATES & VENUES Friday, April 26 — Wayville (SA) Saturday, April 27 – Maitland (NSW) Sunday, April 28 — Canberra (ACT) Saturday, May 4 — Bendigo (VIC) Sunday, May 5 – Townsville (QLD) Saturday, May 11 — Bunbury (WA) Tickets for GTM in Wayville, Maitland and Canberra will go on sale at 8am on Thursday, January 31, and Bendigo, Bunbury and Townsville will be released the day after at 8am on Friday, February 1. For more info, go to gtm.net.au. Images: Jack Toohey.
When you've already got 2023's Cannes Film Festival Palme d'Or-winner and Venice International Film Festival Golden Lion recipient on your lineup, what comes next? If you're the Brisbane International Film Festival, you fill out your just-announced full program with impressive flicks from fests around the world, and featuring beloved talents. Two big standouts: All of Us Strangers, as led by Fleabag's Andrew Scott and Aftersun's Paul Mescal — plus Taika Waititi's new movie Next Goal Wins. Both join a bill that'll show River City cinephiles 42 features and 18 shorts across 11 movie-filled days in October and November. When it arrives for 2023 from Thursday, October 26–Sunday, November 5 — taking over various Reading, Dendy and Five Star cinemas around Brisbane — BIFF will see the two of the internet's boyfriends grace its screens in the newest effort directed by Weekend and Lean on Pete's Andrew Haigh. Heading to the fest fresh from premiering at Telluride, All of Us Strangers adapts Taichi Yamada's 1987 novel Strangers. As for Next Goal Wins, it will close out BIFF 2023 with a comedy based on the 2014 documentary of the same name. The details might ring a bell if you're a fan of soccer and you remember the American Samoan team's big 2001 defeat. Competing against Australia in a qualifying match two decades back, the squad lost 31–0. Cue the hiring of Dutch American coach Thomas Rongen, who Michael Fassbender (X-Men: Dark Phoenix) plays in Waititi's movie. Also a massive highlight: BIFF becoming the latest Australian festival to show Strange Way of Life, aka the most-anticipated short of the year. As well as featuring The Last of Us favourite Pedro Pascal, the 30-minute flick is the newest work by inimitable Spanish filmmaker Pedro Almodóvar (Parallel Mothers) and co-stars Ethan Hawke (Moon Knight). Other newly unveiled standouts span May December, which hails from Carol filmmaker Todd Haynes, is led by Natalie Portman (Thor: Love and Thunder) and Julianne Moore (Sharper), and dives into a scandal — and also The Royal Hotel from Casting JonBenet and The Assistant helmer Kitty Green, which turns doco Hotel Coolgardie into an Aussie thriller featuring Julia Garner (Ozark) and Jessica Henwick (Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery). Hugo Weaving (Love Me) also pops up in that, as well as in The Rooster, which follows a hermit and a cop who form a bond during a crisis. Or, Brisbane movie lovers can check out Housekeeping for Beginners from You Won't Be Alone and Of an Age's Goran Stolevski; German filmmaker Wim Wenders (Submergence) heading to Japan with Perfect Days; Earth Mama, an A24 release by Grammy-nominated music video veteran Savanah Leaf; birth/rebirth, which riffs on Frankenstein just as the already-unveiled Poor Things does; and Smoke Sauna Sisterhood, a documentary about an Estonian log-cabin sauna. Riceboy Sleeps spends time with a Korean single mother and her son as they start a new life in Canada in the 90s, while Sunflower spins a coming-of-age tale in the Melbourne suburbs — and Australia's You'll Never Find Me centres on a caravan resident, a surprise visitor and a thunderstorm. The list goes on, complete with You Should Have Been Here Yesterday's look at the early days of Aussie surf culture, the Randall Park (Strays)-directed comedy Shortcomings and homegrown festive comedy A Savage Christmas, plus retrospective sessions of 1950'sThe Munekata Sisters, 1963's Contempt and 2002's Rabbit-Proof Fence. And, there's the previously announced Uproar, the New Zealand feature opening the fest; Palme d'Or-anointed Anatomy of a Fall, French director Justine Triet's (Sibyl) drama about an author (Sandra Hüller, Toni Erdmann) accused of her husband's murder; and Hirokazu Kore-eda's Monster, the prolific helmer's latest on a lengthy resume that also includes Shoplifters and Broker. Also already added to the lineup: the aforementioned Poor Things from The Favourite's Yorgos Lanthimos; body-horror film Tiger Stripes, which is set in the Malaysian jungle and won the 2023 Cannes Critics' Week Grand Prize; the talk show-set horror Late Night with the Devil; and The Ending Goes Forever: The Screamfeeder Story, focusing on of Brisbane's 90s indie-music favourites. "Our film festival brings a diverse perspective from filmmakers all around the world, and we are proud to be able to showcase these voices and their stories. This program is ambitious and has a strong vision of stories that will make you think and perhaps look at the world in a different way," said BIFF CEO Luke Wheatley, announcing the full program. "These are films from emerging and established filmmakers at their best and I cannot wait to sit in the cinema and share these." The 2023 Brisbane International Film Festival runs between Thursday, October 26–Sunday, November 5 at selected Dendy, Reading and Five Star cinemas around Brisbane. For further information, or to buy tickets, head to the festival website.
If a comet was hurtling towards earth on a collision course that'd wipe out all life as we currently know it, you'd think that humanity would react — and fast. But in the trailer for Netflix's new disaster comedy Don't Look Up, only two people really care: astronomy professor Dr Randall Mindy (Leonardo DiCaprio, Once Upon a Time in Hollywood) and his grad student Kate Dibiasky (Jennifer Lawrence, X-Men: Dark Phoenix). To everyone else, the impending end of the world isn't really something to worry about. The President (Meryl Streep, The Prom) and her son and Chief of Staff (Jonah Hill, The Beach Bum) barely seem to mind, the media definitely doesn't, and neither does the general public. Instead, Kate goes viral for screaming about the apocalypse as she and Randall embark on a media tour to try to convince the planet that being obliterated — in less than six months, and by a Mount Everest-sized comet that's orbiting our solar system — really is kind of a big deal. Forget Bruce Willis and Ben Affleck endeavouring to save the world from an asteroid, because that's so 1998. The former "king of the world" and Katniss Everdeen teaming up to stop a comet from eradicating earth is the firmly 2021 version. And, after first being announced at the beginning of the year — as part of Netflix's lengthy list of new flicks heading its way before 2022 hits — and then dropping a teaser trailer back in September, Don't Look Up now has a full trailer so you can catch a glimpse of how that'll all play out. The film thankfully isn't a sequel to the aforementioned Armageddon. Instead, it's the latest movie from The Big Short and Vice director Adam McKay — and it's set to hit both cinemas and the streaming platform in December. As well as its two high-profile leads, Don't Look Up also stars basically every other actor you can think of, including Timothée Chalamet (Little Women), Cate Blanchett (Where'd You Go, Bernadette), Mark Rylance (The Trial of the Chicago 7), Tyler Perry (Those Who Wish Me Dead), Ron Perlman (Monster Hunter), Himesh Patel (Tenet), Melanie Lynskey (Mrs America), Kid Cudi (Bill & Ted Face the Music) and Ariana Grande. The film will hit Netflix just in time for your Christmas break, dropping on Friday, December 24. It'll also screen in some cinemas from Thursday, December 9, if you'd like to see it on the big screen. And if you're wondering how Don't Look Up will fare tonally, McKay looks like he's in The Big Short and Succession mode, rather than harking back to his Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby and Step Brothers days. That said, Blanchett does play a TV host, so maybe the filmmaker will have audiences thinking about Anchorman as well. Check out the full trailer for Don't Look Up below: Don't Look Up will be release in select Australian cinemas on Thursday, December 9, and will be available to stream via Netflix on Friday, December 24. Images: Nico Tavernise/Netflix.
After a couple of years spent staring at screens our brains are pretty thirsty for some lush green scenery. We are in the mood for tumbling waterfalls, secluded swimming spots and remote rainforest hikes that make us feel like we're living in an endless summer. Luckily for us, Tropical North Queensland fits the bill nicely — and you won't have to renew your passport to get there. In this part of the world, summer lives on a little longer with refreshing tropical rains and warm autumn days. The national parks are a little quieter and the waterways run a little deeper during this time of year, making it the ultimate time to explore the rainforest from top to bottom. From canopy walks, to castles and kayaking — there are plenty of ways to experience the rainforest this autumn.
If September weather still isn't hitting compared to a tropical holiday, then maybe it's time to book a short-haul flight with Virgin Australia's happy hour sale. From now until 11pm today (AEST), score international flights for as little as $419 return. But be quick, because you've only got until 11pm tonight to nab these deals. Travel anywhere from Queenstown and Vanuatu to Bali, Samoa and Fiji, to make the most of this limited-time offer. Deals include a Melbourne to Bali flight for as little as $419 return, or Sydney to Fiji from $489 return. Book your economy flights between October 22, 2025 and March 31, 2026, to be eligible for these red-hot deals. If you're a Velocity Frequent Flyer, then these deals are even better, because sale fares still go towards your Velocity Points and Status Credits. Just make sure to pack light, as these fares do not include baggage and seat reservations. For more information about Virgin Australia's Happy Hour Flights Sale, head to the website. Images: iStock
